Symposium SB08—Soft Embodiments of Electronics and Devices for Healthcare Applications

Advancement in the field of flexible/stretchable electronics, and the materials needed to provide soft embodiments of electronics, is essential to the improvement of devices for healthcare applications. Providing a seamless interface between electronics and the human body is crucial for applications such as rehabilitation, brain machine interfaces, diagnostics, and disease management. Critical factors that drive the widespread introduction of systems aiming to establish a highly functional biological interface include the performance, cost, stability, power management, and lifetime of the materials. This symposium focuses on the development of soft, elastic, and flexible materials, devices and technologies aimed at advancement in healthcare. This includes the fundamental understanding of the material systems and use of these in applications which benefit from the compliant nature of the materials.

Progress within this field relies on multidisciplinary expertise, including electronics, material science, biology, and biophysics. Bringing together scientists and engineers actively engaged in research and development in these fields will facilitate possibilities to overcome limitations of current materials and devices. This will in turn enable further advancement of next-generation materials and devices, resulting in new opportunities in the areas of medicine, healthcare, and brain-machine interactions. The invited speakers possess expertise over a range of material systems as well as the targeted applications. A strong focus of this symposium is to facilitate collaboration between academic institutions and industry.

• Soft embodiments of electronics and prosthetics
• Flexible/stretchable electronic materials
• Organic multifunctional materials
• Organic/inorganic and hybrid materials and systems
• Conducting hydrogels
• Substrates and encapsulation materials / methods with superior mechanical / thermal properties
• Novel signal transduction approaches
• Self-healing materials and sensors
• Wireless communication integrated with bioelectronic sensors and devices
• Biocompatible / bioresorbable layers
• Understanding the interface between organic electronics and biological materials
• Theory & modelling
• Molecular electronics & photonics
• Combining multiple sensing or stimulation modalities

• Polina Anikeeva (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• Michael Dickey (North Carolina State University, USA)
• Christoph Keplinger (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)
• Stéphanie P. Lacour (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Nanshu Lu (The University of Texas at Austin, USA)
• George Malliaras (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Nicholas Melosh (Stanford University, USA)
• John Rogers (Northwestern University, USA)
• Tsuyoshi Sekitani (Osaka University, Japan)
• Robert Shepherd (Cornell University, USA)
• Takao Someya (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
• Kuniharu Takei (Osaka Prefecture University, Japan)
• Benjamin Tee (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
• Bozhi Tian (The University of Chicago, USA)