FMSG: Bio-Manufacturing of Hybrid Tissue-Electronic and Photonic Devices

The ability to integrate living tissues with electronic and photonic devices has potential to impact many aspects of human health, including neurological/neuromuscular disease and injury, such as spinal cord injury and Alzheimer's disease and secretory pathologies, such as diabetes and glaucoma. To date, bioelectronic devices have been employed in several arenas, most notably cardiac pacemakers, cochlear implants, which have enabled tens of thousands of profoundly deaf people to communicate in a hearing world, and deep brain stimulation, which became widely used in the 1990’s to treat Parkinson disease and essential tremor.

Despite the success of these devices, the potential for bioelectrical and biophotonic devices has scarcely been realized, limited in part by challenges in interfacing devices with living tissues and the potential tissue damage due to device insertion. This future manufacturing seed grant will develop new manufacturing methods to create electronic and photonic devices that are biocompatible (i.e., able to facilitate growth and function of healthy biological tissues) and are bio-resilient (i.e., able to withstand the wet, salty, proteinaceous chemical environment of biological systems).

In addition, it will address how to interface the living tissue with electronic and photonic devices so that information (e.g., brain electrical signals, muscle stimulation, neuronal responses) can be transferred between the electronic or photonic device and the living system. This project will build on existing advanced technical education programs in semiconductor technologies and biomedical advanced technologies to identify the core competencies required for the field of manufacturing and train a workforce at the community college, bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree level, broadening participation through our interactions with community college partners and engaging with industry to ensure that the curriculum developed remains responsive to industry needs.

Finally, a detailed curriculum based upon core competencies identified by the project team in conjunction with the Industrial Advisory Board will be developed and piloted at key community colleges and in bachelors and masters level programs at SUNY Polytechnic Institute and Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Feedback from trainees and the Industrial Advisory Board will be used to refine the curriculum for wider deployment in the Future Manufacturing Research Grant phase.

This Future Manufacturing project is jointly funded by the Divisions of ECCS and CBET in the Directorate of Engineering.

Leveraging the strengths of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, AIM Photonics (a federally-funded American Institute for Manufacturing entity located at SUNY Polytechnic Institute), the Northeast Advanced Technological Education Center (an NSF-funded training program) and partners including Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the Neural Stem Cell Institute, this future manufacturing seed grant will focus on design and manufacturing of silicon-wafer electronic and photonic devices with two technical objectives: 1) Design and manufacture of silicon-wafer electronic and photonic devices to interface with biological materials and 2) Development of interfaces for electrical and photonic interaction and measurement of 3D cultures. To identify the barriers to addressing these challenges at the manufacturing scale, the project will include preliminary research focused on two testbeds: 1) Implementation of a pressure sensing device that can measure outflow from ocular tissues to address development of glaucoma therapeutics; 2) Creation of multielectrode arrays interfaced with three-dimensional cell cultures (e.g., neuronal organoids) for electrical stimulation and observation.

A significant focus in these testbed experiments will be on design for manufacturability, to enable the transition from laboratory devices to manufactured devices. In addition, a series of workshops with a wide range of academic and industrial partners will be conducted to identify additional research and manufacturing issues to be addressed in a subsequent Future Manufacturing Research Grant.

This Future Manufacturing project is jointly funded by the Divisions of ECCS and CBET in the Directorate of Engineering.

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.