Intrinsically-Stretchable Cardiac Interfacing Devices for Heart Failure and Ventricular Tachycardia

Recent advances in flexible and stretchable electronics have attracted great attention due to its potential applications to personalized bio-integrated healthcare devices. The mechanical mismatch between conventional rigid electronic devices and soft human tissues oftentimes causes various issues, such as a low signal-to-noise ratio of biosensors, inflammations on the tissue interfacing with the bioelectronics, skin irritations in the case of long-term wearing of the device, and ineffective electrical stimulations in feedback therapies. Such issues can be amplified in the case of interfacing with dynamically moving organs including the heart, and lead to unsatisfactory monitoring efficiency and therapeutic efficacy. Intrinsically-stretchable bioelectronic devices have a low system modulus and intrinsic softness, and thereby have a potential to solve these issues. Nanomaterials and their composites with the elastomeric matrix are a particularly promising material candidate for realizing this soft bioelectronics concept. In this talk, the unique strategies in the synthesis of nanmaterials, processing as stretchable functional nanocomposites, their seamless integration with dynamically-moving caridac muscles are presented. These efforts have combined recent breakthroughs in nanomaterials and soft electronics, and are expected to address unmet clinical challenges.