Flexible electronics and bioelectronics

With novel materials and production methods we can create sensors and other electronic and iontronic components and systems based on soft and stretchable materials. The usage scenarios range from textiles, apparel, leather, interior design to the human body.

Remote care

Our efforts in bioelectronics constitute an enabling technology platform to monitor patients remotely, create point-of-care and selftest so that we can spend less time in hospitals and create a more efficient health care system. 

We connect technology with the human body's skin and nervous system. On the skin there are many markers such as conductance, humidity and temperature, and in saliva, urine and blood we can gather further data such as cortisol and amylas, to indicate our health status.

Medtech and care will drastically change from a reactive mode to a proactive discipline in the coming years, with help of new technology, no approaches and analytics. The efforts are collectively called P4: Predictive - Preventive -  Personalized -  Participatory.

Iontronics

In biological signalling systems such as the human body and in plants, charge is carried by ions as opposed to electrons in conventional electronics.

Iontronics is a new field in electronics -  the possibility to control ion charges and their movement. Research in conducting organic polymers has led to extensive knowledge and new possibilities now exist to create components and systems in iontronics. In the human brain, for example, the communication signals occur in synapses between two neurons with neurotransmittors.

Undoped, conjugated, organic molecules and polymers possess properties of semiconductors, including the electronic structure and charge transport, which can be readily tuned by chemical design. Moreover, organic semiconductors (OSs) can be n-doped or p-doped to become organic conductors and can exhibit mixed electronic and ionic conductivity. Since the 2000s, increased attention has been paid to interfaces in organic electronics that involve dielectrics, electrolytes, ferroelectrics and even biological organisms.

The Ion Pump

The Ion Pump is a breakthrough in medical technology, allowing very precise delivery of transmittor substances (ions, molecules) without the injection of any fluid other than the active substance. The delivery is extremely fast, almost at a par with the speed of the human body's synapses. 

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that enable neurotransmission. It is a type of chemical messenger which transmits signals across a chemical synapse, such as a neuromuscular junction, from one neuron (nerve cell) to another "target" neuron, muscle cell, or gland cell.^[1] Neurotransmitters are released from synaptic vesicles in synapses into the synaptic cleft, where they are received by neurotransmitter receptors on the target cells. Neurotransmitters play a major role in shaping everyday life and functions. Their exact numbers are unknown, but more than 200 chemical messengers have been uniquely identified.^[2][3][4]  (Wikipedia) 

The third nervous system

In the project Smart Intrabody Network we combine several components and flexible electronics to create a network of sensors inside and on the outside of the human body. With the ion pump we can also actively address a specific area in the body and regulate levels of tranmittor substances to, for example, modulate pain.