BioMEMS

We present a 32-channel carbon fiber monofilament-based intracortical neural recording array fabricated through a combination of bulk silicon microfabrication processing and microassembly. This device represents the first truly two-dimensional carbon fiber neural recording array. The five-micron diameter fibers are spaced at a pitch of 38 microns, four times denser than the state of the art one-dimensional arrays. The fine diameter of the carbon fiber microwires affords both minimal cross-section and nearly three orders of magnitude greater lateral compliance than standard tungsten...

Though the chemotaxis sensing system of emph{Escherichia coli} is known to approach fundamental physical limits for biosensing, few attempts have been made to co-opt the system as the front end for a biohybrid sensor. We propose a biohybrid sensor that monitors chemotactic bacterial flagellar motor (BFM) rotation speed and direction to infer analyte concentration for a low-power, fast, and sensitive response. We present the design and fabrication of a four point impedimetric array that uses current injection electrodes to circumvent electrode polarization screening, enabling solution...

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition both in civilian and military medical scenarios. Patients with sepsis usually exhibit a vigorous systemic release of cytokines such as interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) into serum. The ability to monitor relative cytokine levels continuously at fast time scales (tens of minutes) could open the door to closed-loop, patient-specific sepsis management therapies. The current methods of cytokine detection take hours and cost thousands of dollars because the physiological concentration is so low around...

The use of microfluidic devices has experienced a tremendous increase over the last years, which is especially valuable for healthcare applications. In this context, plastic materials are increasingly relevant, especially for large scale fabrication and commercialization. However, plastics are still not widely used at the research level due to the lack of available inexpensive industrial-like fabrication equipment. In this work, we describe a rapid and highly cost-effective approach for fabricating plastic microfluidic...