Biomedical applications for MEMS and microfabrication

BioMEMS has been talked about as one of the most promising areas of microfabrication technologies.  We recently spoke with Dr. Leslie Field and Neha Choksi of SmallTech Consulting  about the current and future applications of BioMEMS as well as technologies which are now being commercialized by startups and Fortune 500 companies.

MEMS Investor Journal:  What kinds of BioMEMS projects has your company been involved with?

Dr. Leslie Field:  SmallTech Consulting has worked on MEMS strategy for large-company medical applications, using micro-fluidics, sensing, actuation and remote powering.  SmallTech’s consultants (while at previous companies) have consulted for medical startups and major medical companies on sensor and valve development from concept through prototyping, intellectual property evaluation, invention and MEMS strategy.  We don’t do only BioMEMS, but it is an area especially interesting to us.

MEMS Investor Journal: For the industry as a whole, what kinds of BioMEMS applications have been commercialized already and which applications look most promising for commercialization within the next two years?

Dr. Leslie Field:  Pressure sensing is “big” for numerous medical applications, and the sensors can be external with conventional leads to wireless and implantable. Sensing, and ultimately controlling, the pressure of various biological fluids in-vivo is a key to improving human quality of life and longevity.  Think blood, think eye and ear, think spinal fluids, think urine, and you have a number of fluids to work with, to help people cope with a number of significant medical conditions.

Further, think composition, as in glucose sensing, and targeted drug delivery, as in monitoring and control of various disease states with fewer side effects, and you have a set of problems to work on that will truly help humanity, while generating profits.

We are also excited by the possibilities to help surgeons do their jobs well by using MEMS eyes, ears, and sense of touch within the body, increasing the success of operations.

MEMS Investor Journal: In general, why is it advantageous to use microfabrication and MEMS technologies for biomedical applications?

Neha Choksi:  MEMS offer a particular advantage to the medical field in many ways.

BioMEMS leverage chemical functions, mechanical functions, electrical and neural functions of microstructures in ways that mimic or interact with the way that the human body.  Some of the specific advantages of BioMEMS are:

• biocompatibility – silicon is biocompatible, plus microtexturing of surfaces
• greater uniformity and reliability
• reproducibility
• miniaturized implants
• ability to respond on short time scales
• ability to provide electrical stimulus
• low power
• optical and electrical sensitivity
• ability to integrate sensor and actuator – closed loop systems are possible
• ability to integrate electronics
• precise control
• small size, ability to integrate sensors and actuators
• ability to interact with fluids – microfluidics, biochemical sensors, etc.
• precise control, quick response, short time scale operation, response to electrical stimulus for drug delivery applications, for example
• chemical functionalization and microtexturing, especially for tissue engineering applications
• miniaturization and ability to measure physiological signals as well as the ability to provide electrical impulses, such as for pace maker applications

BioMEMS also enable non invasive/painful procedures and information retrieval.  For example, microneedle can reach interstitial fluids without going deep enough to stimulate nerve endings that trigger pain.  Thus, drug delivery as well as sample gathering for tests.

Implantable pressure sensors can be used in cardiovascular monitoring, glaucoma monitoring, and monitoring of intracranial pressure

MEMS Investor Journal:  More specifically, which BioMEMS startup companies look most promising today?

Neha Choksi:  Many of the BioMEMS start ups begin from research projects out universities.  These start ups may have truly fascinating technology, but remain off of the radar screen until the product is very close to release for commercialization.  Finding these gems is a true challenge.

MEMS Investor Journal:  On the academia side, are there specific research groups whose technologies you find especially interesting?

Dr. Leslie Field:  We are interested in collaborative models within the universities that promote interaction between researchers and practitioners in various fields.  As examples, the Stanford Biodesign program is deliberately designed to increase interactions between engineers and doctors to drive medical innovation and looks to us like a program to watch.  The UC Berkeley MEMS program, at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) spans several departments and increases fruitful collaboration where the boundaries of various disciplines intersect. 

Neha Choksi:  A program such as at University of Michigan where medical collaboration and wireless expertise are included is one to watch.  We could go on, listing schools with strong interactions, including schools where engineers work directly with associated medical schools: University of Minnesota, USC, CalTech, MIT/Harvard – the list is long and prestigious and we’ve only scratched the surface in this quick discussion. 

MEMS Investor Journal:  Which Fortune 500 companies do you see as being most interested and actively involved with BioMEMS and biomedical microdevices?

Dr. Leslie Field:  While a number of smaller companies are known to be working in BioMEMS, Fortune 500 companies are able to keep their interest and initial efforts in this area “under the radar” for a longer time.  We know of some of these major companies, and must maintain their confidentiality, through our own consulting work, in which we help them with their BioMEMS strategy. By the same token, there are probably additional large-company BioMEMS efforts of which we aren't aware.  The following list is a sampling, necessarily incomplete, of some publicly known large-company programs in BioMEMS. 

Neha Choksi: Intel has been actively involved with both micro and nanoscale technologies.  For example, their Technology and Manufacturing group has been researching the use of MEMS for “wetware,” technology that can help interface the biological world to the “dry” electronic world.  Furthermore, Intel has ongoing research at the nanoscale such as “nanotags” that could have significant medical applications under Dr. Mineo Yamakawa who is the Staff Research Scientist at the Digital Health Group of Intel. 

Texas Instruments has RFID products that are of interest to the pharmaceutical & healthcare industries.  Sensata, which was formerly part of Texas Instruments has biosensors.

Many if not all of the pharmaceutical companies are involved with micro and nano applications with special interest in drug delivery and diagnostics.  P&G is reportedly involved with microneedle arrays for cosmetic applications.

Dr. Leslie Field:  Agilent Technologies provides bio-analytical and electronic measurement solutions to the communications, electronics, life sciences, and chemical analysis industries, and has an interest in MEMS and Nanoscale devices, including a collaboration with Harvard on using nanopores for DNA sequencing.

Neha Choksi: HP has also been exploring the micro and nanoscale.  Their Quantum Science Research group has been working on nanoscale molecular memories. 

In addition to internal projects, many of the fortune 500 companies choose to fund research through universities or through investments/partnerships with smaller companies.  IBM is an excellent example of this.  As another example, Guidant is reportedly working with CardioMEMS on MEMS based implantable pressure sensors.

MEMS Investor Journal:  Rapid point-of-care testing has been talked about as one of the most promising applications of microfludics.  How close are we to having commercialized lab-on-a-chip devices?

Dr. Leslie Field:  This is an area with truly enormous potential.  To sense a disease state at home or in the doctor’s office, without the investment of money and time to use elaborate laboratory setups in the screening and routine monitoring phase – this is a boon that could help to keep skyrocketing medical costs under control while improving quality of life.

MEMS Investor Journal:  For commercialization of BioMEMS and microfluidic devices, what would you say are the top three challenges which companies currently face?

Neha Choksi:  MEMS for medical applications take many years to go from proof of concept to prototype and then through FDA approval. Investors are often impatient and want quicker return on their investment.  Companies face the challenge of keeping their project funded to get to commercialization even if technically, the device shows technical promise.

Many of the components for various bioMEMS applications already exist.  However, these components have to be adapted and integrated to meet the particular bio/medical application.  This is an interdisciplinary process that takes strong communication, creativity, and leadership.  Many projects start from great ideas but struggle on execution.

Dr. Leslie Field: Packaging, packaging, packaging; and then having that package meet with the proper FDA approvals – this is a challenge where MEMS can help, and where the challenges will just keep coming.

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Dr. Leslie Field is the Founder and Manager of SmallTech Consulting, LLC, providing consulting services to a broad spectrum of companies on their technical intellectual property and strategic projects in MEMS and Nanotechnology. Previously she founded a smaller consulting company, MEMS Insight, Inc., also still in operation.  Leslie has a background in Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Corporate R&D, and consulting. Previously, Dr. Field worked in MEMS R&D at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories/Agilent Laboratories and while there, played a key role in starting HP Labs' Micromechanics group and worked on a variety of MEMS projects and devices, including work on valves, switches, and inkjet printing. Farther back, Leslie's work at Chevron Research Company resulted in improved commercial refining methods for various petroleum-based products. Dr. Field has served on conference technical program committees and as a scientific reviewer for NIH. She is an inventor on thirty-seven patents and an author on fourteen technical publications. Dr. Field earned PhD and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley's Sensor & Actuator Center, and MS and BS degrees in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Ms. Neha Choksi earned an MS in Electrical Engineering with a MEMS specialization from Stanford University and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University. Ms. Choksi teaches a course on Nanofabrication at Foothill College. She has worked for startups and premier firms as an Engineering Manager and a Director of Business Development, and as a Strategic Management Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company. Ms. Choksi is active in multiple IEEE chapters including serving as treasurer of Women in Engineering and a committee member of the San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Council. She has published technically, and enjoys working to balance market/business and technical perspectives.

Comments

[Navneet]

Dear Sir/Ma'am,
I am a 3 rd yr. engineerin graduate in electronics.I shall be presenting a paper(review) on MEMS and MEMS based appli.(avionics/biomed./piezoelectric./etc.)
Could u please suggest me how to go about the application based part and what I can contribute to this innovation.
I shall be really beholden to you for it.

Thanking You,
Navneet Nayan.

[ajay]

i am student of 2nd year engineering mechanical stream i want the how mems related to nanotechnology

[Mark Wendman]

Interesting case of a firm fielding an integrated microfluidics clinical testing solution is Epocal, based in Ottawa Canada, and founded by Dr. Imants Lauks who previously founded I-Stat now owned by Abbott Point of Care.

Epocal not only is building and soon selling a complete integrated clinical microfluidics blood diagnostic, but building the system and software for wireless Hospital deployment.

They are leveraging flex on card polyimide film (transport) manufacturing infrastructure to permit roll to roll manufacturing of the disposable integrated microfluidics cards, to quickly replace some tedious blood lab work, quickly and inexpensively.

The data is generated with small card readers that drive the microfluidics chemical analyses resident on the Flex on Card analytical tests.

Far cheaper than typical wafer / hard substrate discrete manufacturing envisioned by many developers of microfluidics, and with far less of costly custom tooling / manufacturing equipment development if not otherwise leveraging standard Flex on Card manufacturing equipment infrastructure.

[Mike Gover]

Wetware?..

isn't that when you combine living brain cells with technology?

i think i read somewhere that scientists at some unversity used leech brains to control tiny, basic robots and they can also use the leech's neurones to calculate basic arithmetic problems

im so confused.....

[dhakshina moorthy.T]

actually i want to start career in MEMS/NEMS . the following things are my research interest

1.convert a conventional energy into power like solar cell, advertisement board, agriculture purpose.
2. medical instrumentation

3. space application.

help me.

bye,
moorthy.t

[payal]

Hi,
I am about to start a project on MEMS. Wanted a few ideas on the apllication of MEMS in the medical field that are implementable. Please help.

[linear actuator]

Actuators are really needed for complex tasks in the high power market.If the load requires accurate positioning, High power actuators has the advantage among others...

[Mahidhar]

Madam,

I am very much interested in this field particularly in Cybrog the insect created at BSAC Berkeley. I did my undergraduation in India and I am further planning to do my post graduation in India in Bio-Mems, and Nanoengineering.

Will I get to do my Phd from University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley sensor and acuator centre.

[Kanchana]

I just started doing project in MEMS.....i need to know the importance of MEMS in medical field

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