Fully compliant smart dental brace for expedited and personalized orthodontic care

To augment the quality of our life, fully compliant personalized advanced health-care electronic system is pivotal. One of the major requirements to implement such systems is a physically flexible high-performance biocompatible energy storage (battery). However, the status-quo options do not match all of these attributes simultaneously and we also lack in an effective integration strategy to integrate them in complex architecture such as orthodontic domain in human body. Here we show, a physically complaint lithium-ion micro-battery (236 μg) with an unprecedented volumetric energy (the ratio of energy to device geometrical size) of 200 mWh/cm^3 after 120 cycles of continuous operation. Our results of 90% viability test confirmed the battery’s biocompatibility. We also show seamless integration of the developed battery in an optoelectronic system embedded in a three-dimensional printed smart dental brace. We foresee the resultant orthodontic system as a personalized advanced health-care application, which could serve in faster bone regeneration and enhanced enamel health-care protection and subsequently reducing the overall health-care cost. 

npj Flexible Electronics 1, Article number: 7(2017) doi:10.1038/s41528-017-0008-7

DIY electronics enabled pill container enabling safe administering of medication

A global epidemic of prescription drug overdose has been on the rise resulting in alarmingly high 200,000 deaths in 2014 only, and the efforts of governments to mitigate this problem have been in vain. Once a patient leaves with the prescription drug container from the pharmacy, no one but only the patient is left with control over the safe use of drugs. Here we show, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) integration strategy of low-cost paper sensor based flexible electronic system housed inside the cap of a prescription drug container to monitor drug intake through the container. These flexible modular decal sensors are connected with a central flexible decal electronic interface. The system averts the patient from undergoing a drug overdose episode and prevent any tampering attempts with the container. Additionally, this simple easy-to-use DIY based integration strategy gives the flexibility to develop customized versions of the system depending on the requirements of different applications, ranging from integration of ambient sensors to monitor the environment inside the container, to security sensors which can detect any kind of mishandling with the prescription container. This add-on system is easy to install or remove allowing easier implementation for practical use to battle drug overdose using Internet-of-Things devices. 

Pending US Patent (2017)

Recyclable household materials based body vital monitor - "paper watch"

A wearable health monitor using low-cost and recyclable paper continuously supervises and assesses body vital conditions simultaneously and in real time, such as blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, and skin hydration. The affordability and high performance of the integrated “Paper Watch” provide an unprecedented flexible and portable approach for advanced personalized healthcare on the go. 

J. M. Nassar, K. Mishra, K. Lau, A. A. Aguirre-Pablo, M. M. Hussain

Adv. Mater. Technol. 2017, 2, 1600228. 

Recyclable household materials based multi-sensory "paper skin"

Human skin and hair can simultaneously feel pressure, temperature, humidity, strain, and flow—great inspirations for applications such as artificial skins for burn and acid victims, robotics, and vehicular technology. Previous efforts in this direction use sophisticated materials or processes. Chemically functionalized, inkjet printed or vacuum-technology-processed papers albeit cheap have shown limited functionalities. Thus, performance and/or functionalities per cost have been limited. Here, a scalable “garage” fabrication approach is shown using off-the-shelf inexpensive household elements such as aluminum foil, scotch tapes, sticky-notes, napkins, and sponges to build “paper skin” with simultaneous real-time sensing capability of pressure, temperature, humidity, proximity, pH, and flow. Enabling the basic principles of porosity, adsorption, and dimensions of these materials, a fully functioning distributed sensor network platform is reported, which, for the first time, can sense the vitals of its carrier (body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and skin hydration) and the surrounding environment.

Nassar J. M., Cordero M. D., Kutbee A. T., Karimi M. A., Sevilla G. A. T., Hussain A. M., Shamim A., Hussain M. M. (2016). Paper Skin Multisensory Platform for Simultaneous Environmental Monitoring. Adv. Mater. Technol., 1: 1600004. doi: 10.1002/admt.201600004 

Fully flexible and stretchable smart thermal patch for pain management

Unprecedented 800% stretchable, non-polymeric, widely used, low-cost, naturally rigid, metallic thin-film copper (Cu)-based flexible and non-invasive, spatially tunable, mobile thermal patch with wireless controllability, adaptability (tunes the amount of heat based on the temperature of the swollen portion), reusability, and affordability due to low-cost complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible integration. 

Hussain, A. M., Lizardo, E. B., Torres Sevilla, G. A., Nassar, J. M. and Hussain, M. M. (2015), Ultrastretchable and Flexible Copper Interconnect-Based Smart Patch for Adaptive Thermotherapy. Adv. Healthcare Mater., 4: 665–673. doi:10.1002/adhm.201400647