For medical devices that need to be implanted or positioned inside the human body to deliver a therapy, size and functionality are among the most important parameters, affecting key aspects of the device, such as feasibility, level of invasiveness, side effects, and safety, ability to reach the desired anatomical target, and efficacy in carrying out intended functions, such as imaging, recording biological parameters, delivering drugs, or applying stimuli, or a combination of these as part of a medical intervention. on the On the other hand, microelectronic devices, integrated circuit design, and system-level architectures have advanced to the point that combining multiple functions in a variety of domains from low noise analog readout, to on-chip digital processing, RF connectivity, power management, and precise control of physical outputs on a monolithic piece of silicon has become quite routine, in an approach referred to as the system-on-a-chip (SoC). In this talk, I will present a few examples of applying the well-established SoC technology towards design and development of cutting edge medical devices that are fit to be implanted or delivered inside the body, while being supported by system blocks outside of the body, to either create de novo medical interventions or significantly improve the existing therapies. I refer to these as the medical device-on-a-chip (MDoC) approach, and also propose the pathway towards design concept, preliminary steps, and evaluation plans for new MDoC technologies that would enable new therapies and interventions that are not feasible today.
Maysam Ghovanloo received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran in 1994, and the M.S. degree in biomedical engineering from the Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1997. He also received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Dr. Ghovanloo developed the first modular Patient Care Monitoring System in Iran and started a company to manufacture research instruments for electrophysiology and pharmacology labs. From 2004 to 2007 he was an assistant professor in the Department of ECE at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. Since 2007 he has been with the Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he is a professor and the founding director of the GT-Bionics Lab. In 2012 he started Bionic Sciences Inc., a technology transfer company, where he serves as the CTO. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications on implantable microelectronic devices, integrated circuits and microsystems for medical applications, and modern assistive/rehabilitation technologies. He also holds 8 issued patents.
Prof. Ghovanloo was a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Tommy Nobis Barrier Breaker Award for Innovation, and Distinguished Young Scholar Award from the Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. He serves on the Senior Editorial Board of the IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems (JETCAS). He served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, Part II, as well as a Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits and IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. He chaired the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems (BioCAS 2015) in Atlanta, GA, and currently co-chairs the technical program committee for BioCAS 2018 in Cleveland, OH. He is also serving on the Analog subcommittee of the Custom Integrated Circuits Conf. (CICC).