ENTERIC & 3D-PRINTED HYBRID PACKAGE FOR SAMPLING IN DIGESTIVE REGIONS
George Banis, Luke A. Beardslee, Justin M. Stine, Reza Ghodssi · 2018 Solid-State, Actuators, and Microsystems Workshop Technical Digest · 2018
We present a packaging concept for an ingestible sensing capsule, which utilizes biodegradable polymers to target the sensors to specific areas of the gut.Interdigitated electrodes (IDE) are inserted into 3D-printed capsules with embedded gratings that are filled with pharmaceutical polymers tuned to dissolve at a specific pH threshold.Sensors, housed within a 3D-printed package accessible only by the gratings, are connected to a microcontroller capable of transmitting data to a smartphone via Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE).The system is tested with varying amounts and types of enteric coatings over the gratings, used toward optimizing control over timed polymer dissolution.This represents a minimally-invasive strategy toward in situ sampling and analysis at pH-targeted locations in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.