New Ingestible Bioelectronic Capsule Monitors for Inflammatory Bowel Disease
A new article in Nature from Biological Design Center researcher Rabia Yazicigil describes the blueberry-sized ingestible bioelectronic capsule for Inflammatory Bowel Disease monitoring.
Even with current technologies, the human gut remains something like a black box, difficult to access and difficult to study. For instance, transient molecules in the gastrointestinal tract such as nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide are key signals and mediators of inflammation, yet because they are very reactive and short-lived in the body, they are difficult to detect. This new ingestible bioelectronic capsule, developed by Dr. Yazicigil’s Wireless Integrated Systems and Extreme Circuits Lab, is uniquely capable of monitoring multiple labile (easily broken down), inflammation-related biomarkers in the gut in real-time. Enhanced monitoring of the gut chemical environment can mean earlier detection of unhealthy states and better protection from disease.
With further clinical testing in humans, this device could be developed as a first line at-home screen for non-invasive continuous monitoring of the chemical environment of the gastrointestinal tract and customized for numerous gastrointestinal disorders, with the potential to be a safer and inexpensive point-of-care alternative to endoscopy. Tracking and quantitatively assessing multiple disease biomarkers would provide a potential framework for patients to assess the effects of diet, lifestyle, and other interventions to improve health outcomes.
The capsule size also makes it unique and safe to swallow. Achieving this miniaturized form factor required advances in (1) the bacterial-cell-based sensors (enough signal from 1uL), (2) the electronics (sensitive enough to record signal from 1uL of cells under power and area constraints) and (3) the casing (allow the shortest distance between cells/electronics while keeping wet things wet and dry things dry).
Bacterial-cell-based sensors (genetically engineered biosensors) are designed by Maria Eugenia Inda (cc’d) and Prof. Tim Lu at MIT, custom ultra-low-power wireless electronics with high sensitivity are designed by Qijun Liu (my student, cc’d) and myself at BU, and casing that is efficiently integrating all these different parts together while protecting the cells in the harsh environment is designed by Miguel Jimenez (cc’d – incoming faculty to BU BME in 2024) and Prof. Giovanni Traverso at MIT.