■ 외부초청 세미나

일시: 07.6.29(금) 10:30
연사: Vijay K. Varadan(Arkansas University)
제목: Nanotechnology and wireless sensors in life sciences and medicine


Nanotechnology has been broadly defined as the one for not only the creation of functional materials and devices as well as systems through control of matter at the scale of 1-100 nm, but also the exploitation of novel properties and phenomena at the same scale. Growing needs in the point-of-care (POC) that is an increasing market for improving patient’s quality of life, are driving the development of nanotechnologies for diagnosis and treatment of various life threatening diseases. This paper addresses the recent development of nanodiagnostic sensors and nanotherapeutic devices with functionalized carbon nanotube and/or nanowire on a flexible organic thin film electronics to monitor and control of the three leading diseases namely 1) neurodegenerative diseases, 2) cardiovascular diseases, and 3) diabetes and metabolic diseases. The sensors developed include implantable and biocompatible devices, light weight wearable devices in wrist-watches, hats, shoes and clothes. The nanotherapeutics devices include nanobased drug delivery system. Many of these sensors are integrated with the wireless systems for the remote physiological monitoring. The author’s research team has also developed a wireless neural probe using nanowires and nanotubes for monitoring and control of Parkinson’s disease. Light weight and compact EEG, EOG and EMG monitoring system in a hat developed is capable of monitoring real time epileptic patients and patients with neurological and movement disorders using the Internet and cellularnetwork. Physicians could be able to monitor these signals in real-time using portable computers or cell phones and will give early warning signal if these signals cross a pre-determined threshold level.Some of the nanotech based devices which are being developed are listed below:

a) Wireless EEG, EOG and EMG hat sensor using carbon nanotube and nanowire (instead of the traditional gold cup with silver chloride and wired configuration). This sensor network system is also being used for epilepsy patients and patients with movement disorder. The same wireless system is also applicable for cardiovascular diseases recording electrical activity of the heart that shows abnormal rhythms (arrhythmias or dysrythmias) and detects the heart muscle damage.
b) Wireless Smart vest integrated with GPS, internet of cellular network for physiological monitoring including EKG, respiration recording, temperature, etc,
c) Organic polymer based sensor: (which replaces the conventional bulky Doppler sonography) for measurement of blood flow, viscosity, oxygen, etc., to cerebral cortex
d) Sensor in the shoe, ankle foot, etc., for gait analysis and movement disorder
e) Lab-on-chip with functionalized nanostructures for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases
f) Nanotherapeutic and drug delivery systems
g) Implantable devices for monitoring and control of neurodegenerative diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease

Selected movies illustrating the applications of nanodevices to patients will be shown at the talk.