Medical Design Briefs - January 2022 - 33

proved to be robust, not losing any of
its sensing capabilities after being
stretched 500 times.
■ Incorporating Sensors into
Robotics
The applications for a stretchable
pressure sensor are wide-ranging, but
Wang points to the recent COVID-19
pandemic as proof for their immediate
need. Many people stuck at home were
relegated to talking with their doctors
through virtual telemedicine and could
not get the diagnostic or therapeutic
care that they needed.
In the future, a robot could provide
such a service. Wang and his team tested
their sensor on a soft robotic hand, which
was able to use the pressure sensor to
grasp a human wrist and record a pulse
waveform. Such a robot could also use
the pressure sensor to provide physical
therapy to patients by putting controlled
massage pressure onto body parts.
The sensor could also act as an electronic
skin on a prosthesis. For example,
a soft robotic prosthetic hand could ultimately
sense the pressure its fingers feel
when picking up an object.
Wang and his team are working to
add multiple sensors to the robot hand
- expanding them to multiple fingers
and adding new sorts of sensors that can
feel texture - and are beginning collaborations
to design future prosthetic
applications.
Stretchable pressure sensors like the one developed by Asst. Prof. Sihong Wang (center) and PhD
students Qi Su (left) and Yang Li (right) could enable long-sought after applications in soft robotics.
(Credit: University of Chicago)
Other authors include Qiang Zou,
Yang Li, Yuzhen Chen, Shan-Yuan Teng,
Jane T. Kelleher, Romain Nith, Ping
Cheng, Nan Li, Wei Liu, Shilei Dai, Youdi
Liu, Alex Mazursky, Jie Xu, Lihua Jin,
Pedro Lopes. Funding was provided by
University of Chicago, US Office of Naval
Research, National Science Foundation,
and Department of Energy.
This article was written by Emily Ayshford,
University of Chicago. For more information,
visit https://pme.uchicago.edu. A video of
the technology is available at https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=VmKYMULonI8&t=3s.
Miniature Optical Fiber Treatment Device Offers More
Effective Cancer Immunotherapy
The device infuses
antibodies through the
miniature fiber to the
tumor to activate T cells
around tumor cells.
Virgina Tech
Blacksburg, VA
Cancer immunotherapy, one of the
most important and promising therapies
for cancer treatments, is being
used by oncologists to treat patients suffering
from many different cancers
including breast, cervical, colon, stomach,
and skin.
" However, an obstacle to achieving
more than moderate success, " says Rong
Medical Design Briefs, January 2022
Cov
Tong, assistant professor in the department
of chemical engineering, " is none
of the current delivery strategies can sustainably
supply drugs that can, over the
course of a few weeks, adjust the drug
dose either to lower systemic toxicities or
to augment therapeutic response. "
Tong came to Virginia Tech in 2015,
the same year that Assistant Professor
Xiaoting Jia joined the Bradley
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. When the two met, they
began discussing their respective
research - his experience in drug delivery
and cancer immunotherapy and hers
on optical fibers for sensing neurological
diseases.
Deciding to merge their efforts to
help combat cancer, Tong and Jia
www.medicaldesignbriefs.com
ToC
addressed the problem with current
immunotherapy delivery methods by
working on a project to develop a
miniature optical fiber treatment
device that can deliver cancer immuno -
therapeutic antibodies while measuring
tumor impedance to monitor treatment
efficacy.
Their initial team included their first
graduate students, Ai Lin Chin, a PhD
student in chemical engineering (projected
to graduate this fall) and Jiang
Shan, who received a PhD in electrical
engineering in May 2021 and is currently
a post doc researcher at Stanford
University. Subsequently, Eungyo Jang
and Liqian Niu, PhD students in chemical
engineering advised by Tong; and
Liwu Li, professor of biological sciences,
33

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Medical Design Briefs - January 2022

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