CAREER: Multisensory Soft Bioelectronics for Comprehensive Monitoring of Gastrointestinal Physiological Interplay

职业：用于全面监测胃肠道生理相互作用的多感官软生物电子学

• 批准号: 2339495
• 负责人: Jinxing Li
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-05-01 至 2029-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2339495&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Multisensory; Soft; Bioelectronics; Comprehensive

The gut, or gastrointestinal tract, widely regarded as our “second brain,” represents the body’s most sophisticated physiological system with complicated biochemistry and biomechanics: (1) Gut biochemistry: it is the home to trillions of microbes that not only transform the diet into key nutrients but also release a variety of neurotransmitters (such as serotonin) and hormones, exerting a marked influence on our physical and mental health. (2) Gut biomechanics: it has multiple muscle layers that stretch and contract synchronously to produce a diverse gut motility pattern for digestion and nutrition absorption. The complex interplay between the gut’s biochemistry and biomechanics constitutes the fundamental physiology of the gastrointestinal system. Dysregulation of these processes can lead to diverse neurological, immune, and bowel disorders. However, studying the complicated physiological inter-regulation in such a series of soft, stretchy, long, and twisting organs with a variety of motility patterns has been a long-standing challenge due to the mechanical mismatch between the biological tissue and conventional electronic components. This project seeks to fill this critical technology gap by developing a soft multisensory bioelectronic device that provides robust and intimate tissue coupling while maintaining its biochemical and biomechanical sensing function during continuous gut motion. The outcomes will be new biodata to spur our fundamental understanding of gut physiology, the interplay between serotonin dynamics and gut motility, as well as new bioelectric tools to diagnose and treat digestive and neurological disorders. This project aims to broaden the participation of young people in engineering, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented minorities and female students. This will be achieved through a comprehensive education plan with a variety of engaging activities, including K-12 student and teacher summer programs on electronics and robotics, undergraduate research programs and design-focused courses, and science and art festival demonstrations.This CAREER proposal aims to integrate unconventional electronic materials and device design, innovative microfabrication methods, wireless hardware, and computational methods, to develop a new type of high-performance multisensory soft bioelectronics capable of simultaneously monitoring gut biochemical release and physical motion with minimized perturbation to the biological system. The proposed multisensory bioelectronic device, with the goal of decoding the gut serotonin and motility interplay, will integrate: (1) A new soft biosensor array for high-resolution gut serotonin detection and mapping, (2) A new soft physical sensor array for high-performance gut motility monitoring, and (3) An implantable wireless integrated circuit for data recording and transmission in freely moving animals and computational methods for the newly produced biodata analysis. With multimodal sensing and mechanical softness, the resulting bioelectronic device will provide robust and intimate tissue coupling while maintaining its high-performance biochemical and biomechanical sensing function during continuous gut motion at its natural state. In the long term, the new bioelectronic tool described here will not only generate new knowledge in electrical materials and biosensing but also provide new insights into studying gut physiology and microbiota–gut–brain communication, potentially leading to new tools to diagnose and treat various neurological and digestive diseases.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

肠道或胃肠道被广泛认为是我们的“第二大脑”，代表了人体最复杂的生理系统，具有复杂的生物化学和生物力学：（1）肠道生物化学：它是数万亿微生物的家园，它们不仅将饮食转化为关键营养素，同时还释放多种神经递质（如血清素）和激素，对我们的身心健康产生显着影响（2）肠道生物力学：它具有同步拉伸和收缩的多个肌肉层，以产生用于消化和营养吸收的不同肠道运动模式。肠道生物化学和生物力学之间复杂的相互作用构成了胃肠系统的基本生理学，这些过程的失调可能导致不同的神经系统。然而，研究一系列具有多种运动模式的柔软、有弹性、长且扭曲的器官中复杂的生理相互调节一直是一个长期的挑战。由于生物组织和传统电子元件之间的机械不匹配，该项目旨在通过开发一种柔软的多感官生物电子设备来填补这一关键技术空白，该设备提供强大而紧密的组织耦合，同时在连续肠道运动期间保持其生化和生物力学传感功能。结果将是新的生物数据，以促进我们对肠道生理学、血清素动力学和肠道运动之间的相互作用的基本理解，以及用于诊断和治疗消化和神经系统疾病的新生物电工具。该项目旨在扩大人们的参与。这将通过一项包含各种引人入胜的活动的综合教育计划来实现，其中包括电子和机器人技术的 K-12 学生和教师暑期项目、本科生研究项目和以设计为中心的课程以及科学和艺术节演示。该职业提案旨在整合非常规电子材料和器件设计、创新微加工方法、无线硬件和计算方法，开发一种新型高性能多感官软体生物电子学能够同时监测肠道生化释放和物理运动，同时最大限度地减少对生物系统的干扰。所提出的多感官生物电子设备的目标是解码肠道血清素和运动的相互作用，将集成：（1）一种新的高软生物传感器阵列。 - 高分辨率肠道血清素检测和绘图，(2) 用于高性能肠道动力监测的新型软物理传感器阵列，以及 (3) 一种可植入无线集成电路自由移动动物的数据记录和传输以及新产生的生物数据分析的计算方法，凭借多模式传感和机械柔软性，所得生物电子设备将提供强大而紧密的组织耦合，同时在连续肠道期间保持其高性能生化和生物力学传感功能。从长远来看，这里描述的新生物电子工具不仅会产生电气材料和生物传感方面的新知识，而且还会为研究肠道生理学和微生物群-肠-脑通讯提供新的见解，从而有可能领先。诊断和治疗各种神经系统和消化系统疾病的新工具。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。