[electronic music]
(Philipp) So what we start off with is a 3-D scan of you.
How large is your biceps?
What shape is your leg, for example?
What are the dimensions?
We can extract that from a 3-D scan.
Then we take this information.
You transform it into a 2D plane.
That 2D device is then printed on a 3-D printer.
Then it is assembled, which means that
we just transform it into a 3D object.
If you look at at
this particular device, you can see if I if I transform
that into this particular shape,
it allows us to, for example, form a taper.
And then we have a ready made device that can be at
various locations of the body.
It can be on the arm, for example.
It can be on the leg, depending on the application.
My name is Philipp Gutruf.
I'm an assistant professor
of biomedical engineering, Craig M. Berge, faculty fellow
at the University of Arizona.
So my lab, what we do is we create devices
that intimately integrate with biology, with us,
with the human body. We have two areas.
one is wearables and the other
is implantable devices that allow us to really capture
what the body is doing in detail with very high fidelity.
I think it's easier for fabrication, right?
So the Bluetooth, I expect, would be a little bit larger,
maybe the size of this one with the new antenna design as well.
So for our wearable devices,
specifically, what we needed
to create is a device that's ultra lightweight, soft
like your skin that conforms to your body really well.
And that's why we pioneered the use of 3D printing and 3D
scanning to create devices
that are tailor made for each individual.
Specifically, when we make these devices,
we insert electronics into this and continue the
printing process to completely encapsulate the electronics.
And what you will see in these devices is these repeating
serpentine shapes that allow
us to create electronics that stretch and bend.
There's nothing really like this out there
at this point in time.
We try to make the form factor in the mechanics
and the feel of the device more like biology.
Having extra information from the human body
allows us to make quicker diagnosis of disease,
we can get more information about somebody. Tailor medicine
to an individual person, which then allows us to,
for example, give
less of a drug, have less side effects, for example.
These are all things that
these type of devices are really useful for.
Another application area is certainly human performance.
We can extract, for example, really small
fluctuations in temperature.
We also have the capability
to look at muscle deformation so we can see how much effort is
put into that particular muscle of the body during exercise.
These are all this is all feedback that you don't get from
conventional wearable devices, even the ones that
pro athletes are using.
[electronic music]
As biomedical engineers,
we always try to improve the current state of technology
And if you just look at the extrapolation
and the speed the technology is developing, we as humans
will be very quickly that the weak link. Right.
So I think really creating a link between technology
and the human body will become critical in the future.
I would really like to make an impact not only in academia.
I would like to see these devices being used by
people every day.
I think that's the ultimate
reward for a researcher to really see that
fundamental research that then ultimately translates
into a product that many people are using and
gathering a lot of benefit from.
That is something that we in general are striving to achieve