IIT Kharagpur has set up India’s pioneering bio-electronics Innovation Laboratory to develop futuristic battery-free implantable medical devices for treatment of brain, nerve, muscle or spinal cord disorders that are untreatable by using standard medical practices, reported Times of India.
Bio-electronics is a new and an exciting field in engineering that is yet to make its mark in India. It utilizes the intersecting knowledge of both electronics and biology.
Sudip Nag from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering who is heading this initiative at IIT Kharagpur shared with TOI that they aim to implant coin sized electronic chips with wireless energy supply for rehabilitation and prostheses applications. He further informed that their solutions will incorporate a combination of electrical stimulation, bio-potential recording and neuro-chemical sensing.
The laboratory will facilitate energy efficient electronic system development, bio-compatible packaging, bio reliability assessment and animal testing rooms as a unified platform for an end-to-end intelligent medical system development.
For the innovation lab, grants have been received from IIT Kharagpur, under MHRD Imprint program, SFTIG Indo-Canadian Fellowship grant and DeITy SMDP grant. It is in the process of setting up collaborations with several hospitals and institutes in India and abroad.
Apart from creating a platform for new medical devices, the lab will open up new career opportunities in incubating companies for production and marketing and also establish an international supply base for medical device giants.
