Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2023 - MD-21

An AI-Enabled Soft Robotic Implant Monitors
Scar Tissue
The intelligent device senses its environment and adapts to release drugs as required, despite
surrounding scar tissue.
University of Galway, Ireland, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
R
esearch teams at University of Galway
and MIT have detailed a new breakthrough
in medical device technology
that could lead to intelligent, long-lasting,
tailored treatment for patients thanks to
soft robotics and artificial intelligence.
The transatlantic partnership has created
a smart implantable device that can
administer a drug - while also sensing
when the body is beginning to reject it
- and use AI to change its shape of the
device to maintain drug dosage, simultaneously
bypassing scar tissue build up and
maintaining treatment.
Implantable medical device technologies
offer promise to unlock advanced
therapeutic interventions in healthcare,
such as insulin release to treat diabetes,
but a major issue holding back such
devices is the patient's reaction to a
foreign body.
Dr. Rachel Beatty, University of Galway,
and co-lead author on the study, explained,
" The technology which we have developed,
by using soft robotics, advances the potential
of implantable devices to be in
a patient's body for extended periods,
providing long-lasting therapeutic action.
Imagine a therapeutic implant that can
also sense its environment and respond
as needed using AI - this approach
could generate revolutionary changes in
implantable drug delivery for a range of
chronic diseases. "
The University of Galway-MIT research
team originally developed first-generation
flexible devices, known as soft
robotic implants, to improve drug delivery
and reduce fibrosis. Despite that
success, the team regard the technology
as one-size-fits-all as it did not account
for how individual patients react and
respond differently, or for the progressive
nature of fibrosis, where scar tissue
builds around the device, encapsulating
it, impeding, and blocking its purpose,
eventually forcing it to fail.
The latest research published today in
Science Robotics demonstrates how they
have significantly advanced the technolMotion
Design, October 2023
Professor Garry Duffy and Dr. Rachel Beatty show the soft robotic implant developed by University of Galway
and MIT. (Image: Martina Regan)
ogy, using AI, making it responsive to
the implant environment with the potential
to be longer lasting by defending
against the body's natural urge to reject
a foreign body.
The research team deployed an emerging
technique to help reduce scar tissue
formation known as mechanotherapy,
where soft robotic implants make regular
movements in the body, such as inflating
and deflating. The timed, repetitive, or
varied movements helps to prevent scar
tissue from forming.
The key to the advanced technology
in the implantable device is a conductive
porous membrane that can sense when
pores are blocked by scar tissue. It detects
the blockages as cells and the materials
the cells produce block electrical signals
traveling through the membrane.
The researchers measured electrical
impedance and scar tissue formation on
the membrane finding a correlation. A
machine learning algorithm was also developed
and deployed to predict the required
number and force of actuations to
achieve consistent drug dosing, regardless
of the level of fibrosis present. And, using
computer simulations, the researchers
explored the potential of the device to
release drug over time with a surrounding
fibrotic capsule of different thicknesses.
The research showed that changing
the force and number of times the device
was compelled to move or change shape
allowed the device to release more drug,
helping to bypass scar tissue build-up.
" If we can sense how the individual's
immune system is responding to an implanted
therapeutic device and modify the
dosing regime accordingly, it could have
great potential in personalized, precision
drug delivery, reducing off-target effects
and ensuring the right amount of drug
is delivered at the right time. The work
presented here is a step towards that goal, "
said Professor Ellen Roche, Professor of
Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
The research team believe that their
medical device breakthrough may pave
the way for completely independent
closed-loop implants that not only reduce
fibrotic encapsulation, but sense it over
time, and intelligently adjust their drug
release activity in response.
For more information, contact
pressoffice@universityofgalway.ie; +35391-493361.
21

Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2023

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