| Efficiently Generating Complex Hydrogel Structures for Tissue/Organ-on-a-Chip Models |
- Faster: Reduces preparation time from several hours to minutes
- Simplified: Generates complex patterns, including perfusable channels, using light-triggered polymerization of synthetic hydrogels and photomasks rather than current equipment-intensive methods that use laser-based patterning or ablation techniques
- Lowers regulatory burdens: Using synthetic rather than biological matrices simplifies regulatory hurdles, increases reproducibility from batch to batch, and increases tunability of the mechanical and biochemical properties of the matrix
|
8838, 8839 |
|
| Electronic Immunoassay Using Enzymatic Metallization on Microparticles |
- Lower cost: Replacing fluorescent markers and readout methods with impedance detection has the potential to significantly decrease the cost of the assay.
- Transportable: Impedance measurements in microfluidics can be made transportable, which can potentially enable point-of-care applications, as electronic elements are more durable than optical elements.
- Practical: Identification of COVID-19 antibodies in COVID-positive serum samples has already been demonstrated.
|
8813 |
|
| patcherBotPHARMA Automated Intracellular Pharmacological Electrophysiology Robot |
- Increased efficiency: Autonomous operation ensures accurate placement of components and creates high success rates for experiment completion.
- Decreased human effort: Performs typical ligand-gated ionotropic receptor experimentation protocols autonomously for up to a tenfold reduction in operator interaction time over the duration of the experiment
- Higher experiment yield: Rapidly replicates previous datasets, reducing the time to produce an 8-point concentration response curve from weeks of recording to ~13 hours of recording
|
8717 |
|
| Wearable Ocular Electronics with Virtual Reality Solution for Effective Home-Based Vision Therapy |
- The first fully portable and wireless ocular electronic system in a VR environment provides an effective, home-based visual therapy program.
- The integrated wearable system has a data classification algorithm to provide high-fidelity, real-time detection of eye vergence to treat eye disorders.
- Running a VR system on a smartphone can create “virtual therapies” that can be used anywhere anytime.
|
7916 |
|
| DetectIV Offers Noninvasive Early IV Infiltration and Extravasation Detection |
- DetectIV provides a continuous, noninvasive, and wireless IV infiltration and extravasation detection system.
- The sensor does not cover the IV site and works well with all skin types—significant improvements over existing detection devices.
- The device detects infiltrations on average 2 hours ahead of nursing standard of care making it an effective early detection system that prevents extended hospital stays.
|
7207 |
|
| Microrobots for Neurosurgery Applications |
- Minimally invasive: Significantly reduces invasiveness of procedures in comparison to current macroscale, neurosurgical robots
- Precise control: Uses 3D position data of the microrobots on the brain surface in a closed-loop system to adjust the magnetic field parameters (i.e., magnitude, frequency, phase, and direct current [DC] offset of each coil) as well as the forces the robots exert to the biopsy tissue
- Facilitates movement: Employs microfabricated shapes that dictate the microrobot's movements, limits their contact with the brain surface to reduce adhesion, and may also provide a means for the robot to propel itself in fluid
|
8749 |
|
| Smart, Wireless, Bioelectronic Pacifier for Real-Time Continuous Salivary Electrolyte Monitoring in Infants |
- Smart pacifier offers wireless, real-time, continuous detection of sodium and potassium levels in infants.
- This totally non-invasive monitoring pacifier eliminates the need for blood draws, which can only be done three times each day, and is designed to provide non-invasive neonatal health monitoring.
- Microfluidic channels are designed to efficiently pump optimum quantities and concentration of viscous saliva to the sensor area for quick measurement and to eliminate the need to induce salivary stimulation.
|
8942 |
|
| Quantitative, Multiplexed Electronic Detection of COVID-19 Biomarkers |
- Direct electronic detection: This innovation provides direct detection of biomarkers as a simple electronic readout without the use of any intermediate optics.
- Multiplexed: The device can simultaneously detect multiple biomarkers (e.g., a four-plex chip to detect IgG and IgM antibodies against spike or nucleocapsid antigens).
- Portable: A handheld, cellphone-interfaced reader is designed to enable detection and monitoring of diseases in remote areas for sensitive yet inexpensive point-of-care use.
|
8814 |
|
| Biologically Inspired Connected Advanced Driver Assistance System |
- Cost-effective: Leverages existing vehicle infrastructure (e.g., sensors, lights) along with an affordable software upgrade to provide enhanced collision avoidance capabilities, typically for less than $500
- Safety-enhancing: Designed to help prevent up to 94% of automotive crashes by providing reduced lag time and enabling faster driver reaction rates
- Convenient: Aims to optimize vehicle travel speeds and reduce traffic congestion and travel times
|
8918 |
|
| Atomic Metal Catalysts |
- Innovative: Generates new isomers by changing the order in which atoms are added in a hetero-atomic cluster (can maximize available catalytic sites)
- Efficient: Creates and optimizes active isomers of atomic metals such as Au and Pd, increasing the catalytic efficiency of these high-demand metals (requires minimal precious catalytic metal)
- Scalable: Provides a scalable process resulting in theoretically predictable catalytic properties
|
6451, 5217 |
|
| Recirculation System for Aerosol Collectors Maximizes Particle Concentration for Improved Pathogen Detection |
- Enhanced detection: Continuously recirculated collection buffer increases the concentration of targeted particles collected and improves detection of pathogens
- Increased sampled air volume: Recirculating the buffer enables running the system for longer periods of time and with larger volumes of air to improve pathogen detection in entire buildings
- Increased control: Users have active control of the volume of fluid introduced during collection via the system’s recharge pump
|
8903 |
|
| Fourier Light-Field Microscope (FLFM) for Fast, Volumetric, and High-Resolution Imaging of Entire Organoids |
- Cost-efficient and scalable: Is fully adaptable to epifluorescence protocols resulting in a system that is both cost-efficient and highly scalable
- Fast: Captures fast cellular and tissue dynamic processes in a simultaneous, volumetric manner (e.g., collective cellular responses at sub-second time scales across whole samples)
- Validated: Responses to extracellular physical cues such as osmotic and mechanical stresses have been recorded using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived colon organoids (hCOs).
|
8844 |
|
| Airborne Acoustic Sensing System for “Ear in the Sky” Capabilities on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) |
- Optimizes speech clarity: Uses acquired empirical data and iteratively refines the processing capability until the optimal signal to noise ratio (SNR) is achieved
- Improves covert detection: Enables acquisition of a live voice signal from a person of interest without detection by using UAS platforms to remotely acquire acoustic signals and using digital signal processing algorithms to filter, enhance, and localize the speech signal of interest
- Enhances warfare tools: Provides increased situational awareness, enhanced ISR capabilities, and helps identify potential security threats to deployed assets
|
6985, 7223 |
|
| TabAccess: A Wireless Controller for Tablet Accessibility |
- Enabling: Provides an alternative interface to touchscreen-based devices for people with limited fine motor control, potentially enabling them to interact with applications that could improve their quality of life or even create employment opportunities
- Reconfigurable: Sensor modules can be interconnected as well as separated and mounted anywhere (e.g., on the human body or on a table, floor, wheelchair, etc.), enabling adaptation of the device based on the capability, range of access, and the individual’s range of motion.
- Adjustable: Uses an adjustable Velcro strap so one size fits the majority of forearms
|
5946 |
|
| Cell-free Biosensors to Detect Creatinine, Creatine, and Sarcosine |
- Portable: This technology demonstrates the potential to develop point-of-care screening and monitoring, which is essential to expanding access to care worldwide, including to low- and middle-income countries.
- Inexpensive: CFE-based biosensors can cost as little as a few cents per test and could provide a low-cost alternative to current renal function monitoring and diagnosis, which currently involves laboratory visits, trained phlebotomists, skilled technicians, and expensive, specialized equipment.
- Cell-free: The use of a cell-free expression system could enable easier-to-read quantitative output that is less susceptible to matrix effects.
|
8776 |
|
| Passive Learning via Wearable Haptic Stimuli System |
- Fast: This technology significantly reduces the time needed to learn Braille. In only four hours, eight test subjects were taught to type the entire Braille alphabet as well as read Braille (with >90% accuracy), while simultaneously focusing on another task.
- Simplifies learning: A lack of certified Braille teachers, few learning centers, and a steep learning curve make teaching Braille difficult. This technology greatly simplifies the learning process.
- Passive: Because it doesn’t require the user’s attention on the stimuli, this technology allows them to focus on other tasks while still learning.
|
6678 |
|
| Low-Power Real-Time Ionizing Radiation Detector |
- Sensitive: Detects the charge generated from the interactions of ionizing radiation within matter with a high level of precision and discerns X-ray pulses of varying dose
- Scalable: Covers a significantly larger detection area than other methods, ranging from 60,000 square micrometers to one square millimeter
- Responsive: Responds within microseconds and proportionately with the overall radiation dose when exposed to X-rays of varying tube voltage (energy) and tube current (number of particles)
|
8780 |
|
| Self-Powered Highly Stretchable Sensing Interface for Gesture Recognition |
- Self-contained: Includes a signal processing pipeline, providing gesture recognition for an extensive range of input modalities without the need for external power or sensing equipment
- Assistive: Enables eyes-free, unobtrusive, and ergonomic interaction with computing devices embedded in wearables
- Versatile: Demonstrates far-reaching potential for applications beyond gesture recognition including in actuation and data acquisition
|
7987 |
|
| Scalable Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity for Chemical Separations |
- Scalable: Uses simple chemistry and eliminates production steps to enable large scale polymer manufacturing
- Solution-processable: Permits the development of a variety of membrane morphologies including dense flat sheets, thin film composites, and hollow fibers
- High chemical stability: Results in stable structures able to withstand exposure to solvents and other chemicals, enabling stable separation performance and industrial application
|
8113 |
|
| A Biological Computing Framework for Living Systems |
- Innovative: Builds on probabilistic computing principles to construct analog biological bits, enabling an entirely new set of logic gates and algorithms and potentially allowing users to solve previously intractable problems
- Robust: Can sense every extracellular protease encoded in the human genome, for which there is a known peptide substrate, enabling a simple plug-and-play framework for communicating with a variety of biological activities and offering performance competitive with DNA-based computers but with increased processing speed
- Relevant: Provides a framework based on biological activity and constructed from biological materials, which enables a direct interface with and understanding of living materials and systems
|
8009 |
|
