All-Printed Nanomembrane Sensors and Bioelectronics for Wireless and Continuous Monitoring of Vascular Health

该项目促进了对传感器力学、流体动力学、无线通信和基于打印的制造的全面理解，以克服目前植入式生物电子学的局限性，同时推进血管健康方面的知识。准确的血流监测可以揭示病人的一个至关重要的健康状态，为临床医生提供诊断和治疗所需的信息。不幸的是，目前检测血流状况的方法是侵入性的，需要进行多种程序。此外，现有的可植入系统在材料集成和电子制造方面显示出显著的知识差距，考虑到灵敏度、兼容性和无线通信，这些知识差距可以共同作为一个完整系统的设计指南。本项目旨在研究和理解植入式系统的力学、材料集成、印刷工艺和无线方法的基本工程基础。这些机械、材料和电气设计原则将为新型植入式生物电子学提供广泛的功能和适应性基础，这些植入式生物电子学具有软微结构的独特优势，可增强与血管壁的接触，对血液动力学的干扰最小，并增强无线检测质量和距离。该项目的研究结果将提高对血流动力学的理解，以解决血管疾病的广泛和重大影响。工程知识，包括材料制备，制造，设计和传感策略，将广泛适用于改进植入式电子和理解许多生理过程。此外，各种科学知识和工程材料的跨学科理解和收获将用于教育国外科学，技术，工程和数学领域的学生。最近，专门为血管应用开发了各种植入式装置。然而，这些设备需要使用容易断裂的桥接线，而读出距离被限制在几厘米以内。尽管有这种限制，标准的程序是在血管系统中植入生物传感系统。此外，由于血管狭窄且高度轮廓化，所需的血流动力学监测传感器必须柔顺、柔软和小型化，以实现无缝植入并避免血流干扰。为了克服植入式系统的重大知识和技术差距，本项目旨在研究和了解机械，材料集成策略，材料加工和无源无线电子学方面的基本工程基础，以实现与血管无缝集成的植入式生物传感系统，实现连续血流动力学监测。本项目有以下研究目标，包括：1)了解软微结构的高通量打印和集成，以提高生物传感器的灵敏度；2)研究无源无线传感原理和3D，高性能无线支架的多材料集成；3)研究生物传感系统的部署和流体动力学，用于长期，多路无线传感。通过该项目揭示的基本原理将为新兴的植入式系统定义新的指导方针，这些系统需要满足低外形因素、灵敏度、植入式和无线性能的苛刻要求。该项目的工程基础和生物传感系统框架将推动植入式生物电子学领域的发展，以监测和理解血管和心脏功能、诊断和治疗。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project promotes a comprehensive understanding of sensor mechanics, fluid dynamics, wireless communication, and printing-based manufacturing to overcome current limitations in implantable bioelectronics while advancing knowledge in vascular health. Accurate blood flow monitoring can reveal a critically important state of a patient's health, offering clinicians the information required for diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, current methods for detecting blood flow conditions are invasive with multiple procedures. In addition, the existing implantable system shows significant knowledge gaps in material integration and electronics manufacturing that can collectively serve as a design guideline for a complete system, considering sensitivity, compatibility, and wireless communication. This project aims to study and understand essential engineering fundamentals in mechanics, material integration, printing processes, and wireless methods for an implantable system. These mechanical, material, and electrical design principles will offer a broadly functional and adaptable foundation for a new class of implantable bioelectronics with distinct advantages of soft microstructures for enhanced contact to vessel walls, minimal disruption to hemodynamics, and enhanced wireless detection quality and distances. The findings resulting from this project will improve the understanding of blood flow dynamics to address the widespread and significant impact of vascular diseases. The engineering knowledge, including material preparation, fabrication, design, and sensing strategies, will be broadly applicable to improving implantable electronics and understanding many physiological processes. In addition, the interdisciplinary understandings and gains of various scientific knowledge and engineering materials will be used to educate abroad range of students in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.Recently, various implantable devices have been developed specifically for vascular applications. However, these devices require the use of a bridging wire that is susceptible to fracture, while the readout distance is limited to less than a few centimeters. Despite this limitation, the standard procedure is to implant a biosensing system in the vascular system. In addition, since blood vessels are narrow and highly contoured, the required hemodynamic monitoring sensors must be compliant, soft, and miniaturized for seamless implantation and avoiding flow interference. To overcome the significant knowledge and technological gaps in the implantable systems, this project aims to study and understand essential engineering fundamentals in mechanics, material integration strategies, materials processing, and passive wireless electronics for an implantable biosensing system that seamlessly integrates with blood vessels for continuous hemodynamic monitoring. This project has the following research objectives, including 1) understanding of high-throughput printing of soft microstructures and integration for enhanced sensitivity of biosensors, 2) study of passive wireless sensing principles and 3D, multi-material integration for a high-performance wireless stent, and 3) study of a biosensing system deployment and fluid dynamics for long-term, multiplex wireless sensing. The fundamental principles revealed through this project will define a new guideline for emerging implantable systems subject to demanding requirements of low-profile form factor, sensitivity, implantability, and wireless performance. The engineering basics and biosensing system framework resulting from this project will advance the field of implantable bioelectronics to monitor and understand vascular and cardiac functionality, diagnostics, and therapeutics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.