ADA S. Y. POON, Stanford University

Miniaturized electronics, when placed inside the body, can wirelessly monitor and modulate internal activity and thus hold promise as a new class of treatments for disorders. The development of such bioelectronic medicines requires wireless interfaces that are tiny and operate deep in a complex electromagnetic environment. In this talk, I will describe a new method for electromagnetic energy transfer that exploits near-field interactions with biological tissue to wirelessly power tiny devices anywhere in the body, including the heart and the brain. I will discuss engineering and experimental challenges to realizing such interfaces, including a pacemaker that is smaller than a grain of rice and a fully internalized neuromodulation platform. These devices can act as bioelectronic medicines, capable of precisely modulating local activity, that may be more effective treatments than drugs, which act globally throughout the body.

Ada S. Y. Poon received her Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley.  Upon graduation, she spent some time in industries, and worked at Intel and SiBeam.  Then, she returned to academic.  Now, she is a faculty at Stanford University.  She is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub senior investigator.

Sandford Fleming Building, Room 1105