Electronics for the Human Body

The human body is soft, curvilinear, and continuously evolving;modernelectronicdevicesare rigid,planar, and physically static. Recent research has yielded a complete setofadvancedmaterials,manufacturingapproaches,and design layouts that eliminates this profoundmismatch in properties.Theresultingdevicescan intimately integrate onto or into the humanbody for diagnostic, therapeutic, or surgical functionwith important unique capabilities in biomedical research and clinicalmedicine. These emerging technologies have strong potential to improve humanhealthandtoenhancetheunderstandingof livingsystems. They fall into 3 categories—soft, injectable, and bioreabsorbable electronics—each demonstrated in extensive animal studies and several in initial human trials. The Figurepresents images of bioelectronic devices.