Boyang Xiao, 2nd year PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Xiaoguang Dong in Mechanical Engineering.
Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases have become more common and serious among health problems in the US. It is reported that there are over twenty million Americans suffering from chronic GI diseases. How to provide timely diagnosis, long-term monitoring, and effective treatment is the current focus of researchers and health care providers. Point-of-care testing and treatment is a method which performs medical procedures at the time and place of patient. It improves the operation effectiveness and reduces the operation time and patient discomfort, which has played vital roles in public health.
My research focuses on the design, fabrication, and control of soft miniature robots for on-site GI disease diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment. By building the robot with soft magnetic material, the devices can be actuated by external magnetic field wirelessly. In our recent published paper, we propose a method to sense mucus viscosity in situ enabled by wireless miniature viscosity sensors and soft climbing robots actuated by magnetic fields and tracked by medical imaging. This work allows monitoring mucus viscosity continuously to help understand the development of disease and help identify efficient point-of-care treatment methods by providing frequent feedback information. My current research involves integrating complex 3D structures with the robots and enabling targeted drug delivery and liquid sampling.
VINSE provides great support for my research with its fantastic facilities and community. The cleanroom and 3D printers enable rapid prototyping with high resolution. The characterization tools such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and viscometer in the analytical room allow fast and precise evaluation of our devices. I also greatly appreciate the generous support provided by VINSE staff and I am looking forward to further collaboration in the future.
Contact: Boyang Xiao