Dr. Allen will be discussing his work with bioimplantable sensors based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, that can communicate information from within the body to guide medical treatment of disease.
Examples of his work include a permanently-implantable sensor for chronic monitoring of endovascular blood pressure to allow titration of medication for patients with congestive heart failure, as well as an implantable, biodegradable sensor fabricated entirely of biodegradable materials. Such biodegradable implants for acute medical applications such as bone or wound healing.
Additionally, the use of protein materials as substrates for implantable MEMS will be discussed. Device experimental results, including clinical implementation of the permanent sensors (which are now commercially available) and bench results from the newer biodegradable and protein-based devices will be presented.
About Mark Allen:
Mark Allen received degrees in chemistry, chemical engineering, and electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and MIT. In 1989 he joined Georgia Tech, ultimately becoming Regents’ Professor and the J.M. Pettit Professor in Microelectronics. In 2013 he returned to Penn to become Scientific Director of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology. He and his group have authored approximately 400 publications in various areas of MEMS, and he is co-founder of multiple MEMS companies, including CardioMEMS (which commercialized the first FDA-approved, wireless MEMS sensor for permanent endovascular implantation) and Axion Biosystems. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and received the IEEE 2016 Daniel P. Noble Award for contributions to research and development, clinical translation, and commercialization of biomedical microsystems. More information can be found at: http://mems.seas.upenn.edu