3D Printing of Bioelectronics and Soft Robots

Whereas human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Merging humans, machines and their intelligence is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in health, sustainability, security, education and joy of living. However, interfacing humans and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT Zhao Lab, we exploit <i>soft materials technology</i> to form long-term, high-efficacy, multi-modal interfaces and convergence between humans and machines. This talk will focus on customized fabrication and manufacturing of soft materials and devices via 3D printing. Two examples will be highlighted: i). bioelectronics for long-term multi-modal neural interfaces; ii). soft robots for teleoperated and autonomous navigations and operations in previously inaccessible lesions such as in cerebral and coronary arteries. The biocompatibility and efficacy of these 3D printed soft materials and devices have been validated in rat and pig models. I will conclude the talk with a perspective on future human-machine convergence enabled by soft materials technology and empowered by 3D printing.