BME Department Seminar

B1270. Join the Department of Biomedical Engineering for their upcoming seminar featuring Dr. Simiao Niu, an assistant professor at Rutgers University! He will be presenting "Battery-free Wireless Bioelectronic Network for Effective Chronic Disease Management." Abstract: 60% of the US population live with at least one chronic disease. These diseases and associated comorbidities are now the leading causes of death. Effective management of complex chronic diseases requires body-wide, long-term, accurate, and continuous monitoring of multiple physiological signals from wearable devices to precisely determine the pathological state. These wearable physiological signal monitoring can dramatically reduce the demand of physician visiting and increase patients’ engagement and treatment adherence rate. Although wearable bioelectronic devices have shown huge potential in chronic disease management, existing technology still mostly relies on rigid chip components, where the interface between chips and skin/tissue has been a bottleneck that limits the system performance (noise, robustness etc). To address these challenges, my group's research has been involved in the exploration of rational system design concepts, material and device fabrication innovation, tailored algorithms, and energy harvesting to enable a closed-loop wireless bioelectronic network that targets next-generation chronic disease management. In this talk, I will discuss my group's efforts in building this technology platform. First, I will describe a Biomimetic, Ultralow-Power Edge-AI-Empowered and Self-sustaining Gait Analysis System. By combining energy harvesting, ultralow-power sensor system and ultralow-power edge-AI algorithm, we solve the bottleneck between device intelligence and continuous monitoring capabilities between current wearables. Next, I will introduce an active living bioelectronics platform for managing skin inflamation. Combining living bacteria, hydrogel and flexible printed circuit board could enable new bioelectronics type that combines biogenic, bioelectrical and biomechanical properties. Finally, I will describe our efforts in designing ultrasound energy transfer techniques in powering implantable devices. Overall, the developed technology platform could assess multiple health outcomes and treatment responses to various chronic diseases. Ultimately, this technology will help to reduce chronic disease burden, lower medical costs, and provide a better quality of life for patients. Bio: Dr. Simiao Niu is an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University. Before Rutgers, he was a hardware system engineer at the health technology team in Apple Inc. He received his postdoctoral training in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, under the supervision of Prof. Zhenan Bao, and received his Ph.D. degree in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016, under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. Dr. Niu's past research on wearable technology and bioelectronics has led to multiple awards, including the MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 Asia Pacific List, MRS Early Career Distinguished Presenter, Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher, the 36th and 38th Japan Telecommunications Advancement Foundation Best Paper Award, Apple Special Recognition Award, and the MRS graduate student award. His current work focuses on wearable devices and energy harvesting systems for biomedical applications.