Engineer's circuit to help enable miniature medical implants (12/20/2007)

A penny is larger than a tiny wireless circuit designed by a University of Florida engineering researcher. The circuit contains all the electronics necessary to recharge miniaturized medical systems via a wireless charger. These implantable systems could one day administer medicine to ill patients, help disabled people use artificial limbs or perform other therapeutic tasks within the body.

A University of Florida engineering researcher is helping to pave the way for tiny implanted medical devices that could one day administer medicine to ill patients, help disabled people use artificial limbs or perform other therapeutic tasks within the body.

Rizwan Bashirullah, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has designed a tiny circuit that contains all the electronics necessary to recharge so-called "miniaturized medical systems" via a wireless charger. The circuit, which is slightly smaller than a penny, is another step toward the development of miniature cousins of traditional pacemakers expected to become widely available in coming decades.

"Anything that is implanted chronically that requires battery charging has to be done wirelessly, so that's the focus of this work," Bashirullah said.

A paper about the circuit appeared recently in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Circuits and Systems II.

Bashirullah said cochlear implants, placed in the inner ear to improve patients' hearing, are at the crest of a wave of coming miniaturized medical implants. Researchers are at work on artificial retinas, neuromuscular simulators, even tiny injectors that would administer drugs in response to bodily conditions. Further into the future, there is discussion of implantable machines that would scour fat deposits from veins or arteries.

Pacemakers, among the oldest implanted medical electronics, have a long-life battery that enables them to function for years at a time within the body. But the batteries in newer, more miniature devices may require recharging.

Bashirullah's chip contains a wireless transceiver and several other elements needed to receive energy transmitted from a charging wand. The research was funded in part with a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded to UF's department of electrical and computer engineering, in collaboration with the department of pediatric neurology.

Other collaborators on the grant include engineering researchers John Harris, Jose Principe, Toshi Nishida and neuroscience researcher Dr. Justin Sanchez.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the University of Florida

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