Addressable transmitters operated as magnetic spins,’ mimic MRI use through integrated sensors, resonators, and wireless transmitters
Orange County, CA - October 31st 2017 - Researchers at The California Institute of Technology have developed a prototype of a miniature medical device that could eventually be used in "smart pills" to diagnose and treat diseases. This technology is unique for the microscale medical market due to the chip’s ability to deliver its coordinates within a patient’s body.
"The dream is that we will have microscale devices that are roaming our bodies and either diagnosing problems or fixing things," says Azita Emami, co-leader of research and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Andrew and Peggy Cherng medical engineering department at Caltech, along with Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator Mikhail Shapiro. "Before now, one of the challenges was that it was hard to tell where they are in the body."The team’s research was published in the September issue of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. The ATOMS technology, short for ‘addressable transmitters operated as magnetic spins,’ is similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to its use of magnetic fields. However, rather than depending on the body's atoms, the chips contain a set of integrated sensors, resonators, and wireless transmitters to mimic their resonance imaging properties.
The chip’s prototype has a surface area of 1.4 square millimeters- 250 times smaller than a penny. Armed with a magnetic field sensor, a wireless powering device, integrated antennas, and a circuit to adjust radio frequency signal dependent on the magnetic field strength, the chip can wirelessly communicate its location. Currently mice have proven to be successful test subjects, the next step will be human trials in hopes of readying the device for mainstream consumption.
