Fully Implantable Wireless and Battery-Free Organ Interfaces

Seamless organ interfaces combined with high fidelity readouts and modulation capabilities offer unparalleled insights into the central and peripheral nervous system and musculo-skeletal system. A new class of wireless, battery-free platforms enable long-term experiments with continuous uninterrupted recording and stimulation, with capabilities that match or exceed those of current wired or battery-powered platforms. Combined with soft and flexible mechanics, these devices are fully implantable in small animal models enabling studies without impacting the subject’s behavior or mobility, with fast recovery times post-surgery, with reduced infection risks, and operate with lifetimes that exceed those of the test subjects. Development of this new class of device is critical to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical research to enable new diagnostic tools to dissect understudied organ systems and to further the development of therapeutic tools for motor disorders and spinal cord injuries.Specifically, I have expanded these platforms with antenna designs optimized for use in highly miniaturized form factor to facilitate subdermal implantation in freely moving young mice. This allows long-term experiments to study complex behavioral circuits by recording cell-specific neural dynamics1. I have also implemented communication protocols that allow existing systems to receive programmed stimulation parameters without requiring additional circuity or power. This allows miniature systems to be subdermally implanted in rats to electrically modulating cell specific neural pathways, in the deep brain using surface engineered microelectrodes to study stimulation dosing and their use in therapeutic treatment of motor disorders2. I also extended the technological platform for osseosurface electronics to allow for two-way communication for devices with multimodal capabilities of stimulation and recording. This enabled devices to capture long-term metrics of bone health in real time, paving the way for personalized treatment of the musculoskeletal system3. Combined, I have advanced wireless battery-free platforms to effectively study targeted organs in freely moving subjects through the optimization of antenna and system designs, device mechanics and flexible electronics fabrication schemes and implementation of communication protocols. These systems have also led to the expansion of current experimental paradigms to study freely behaving subjects which can provide significant insight into functional mechanisms of the nervous system and musculoskeletal system which are currently substantially limited by conventional tethered, and battery powered approaches