When fully implantable pacemakers were first invented, they were seen as a medical breakthrough device with the potential to help millions. The evolution of pacemakers since then has been swift and expansive. Despite this, current pacemaker systems suffer from several critical limitations including infection, thrombosis, tricuspid valve or ventriculator...

Electrocorticography (ECoG) arrays are clinically useful in monitoring and recording electrical activity from the cerebral cortex either during surgery or prior to surgery for localizing surgical sites, such as epileptic foci. In terms of recording neural activity, ECoG has much greater spatial specificity than other techniques because it eliminates...

External ventricular drainage (EVD) is considered to be the standard of care for CSF diversion and intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring. However, EVD is an invasive procedure that requires the placement of a catheter into a hole drilled into the cranium. The catheter monitors pressure gradients in many spaces such as intraventricular, intraparenchymal,...

Obtaining a cancer diagnosis can be difficult, particularly for bladder cancer. Current bladder diagnostic strategies include either invasive cystoscopy or labor intensive urine cytology; neither of which is ideal. Different types of cells, including cancer cells, have distinct biophysical properties. Cancer cells tend to spread out and have greater...

According to the World Health Organization, there are hundreds of millions of people suffering from chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs), including asthma, COPD, sleep apnea, pulmonary hypertension and more. Measuring and characterizing lung functionality is an essential step toward diagnosing, monitoring and treating these respiratory conditions. The...

The field of microfluidics has rapidly emerged and been implemented in an array of applications, such as molecular analysis, bio-defense, molecular biology, and microelectronics. Microvalves can be used to control routing, timing, and separation of fluids in many different microfluidic systems. However, current microvalve technology faces challenges...

MEMS microphones have become very popular in commercialized products in recent years, and one of the greatest demands currently is for directionality. This requires that multiple microphones be matched with great precision, but there is generally some degree of mismatch even when the microphones are manufactured very carefully. Existing techniques for...