Khalil Ramadi Tandon School of Engineering New York University Abu Dhabi UAE

On bots and bugs: Ingestible technologies for diagnosis and therapy

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is a unique point of intersection of digestive, metabolic, nervous, and immune system. Interfacing with the GI tract is quite challenging, given the harsh, motile, and variable environments of the stomach and intestine. This talk will present a variety of engineering approaches for the design and manufacturing of ingestible devices that can successfully interface with GI tissue. We illustrate a variety of clinical applications for such devices, including 3-dimensional mapping of GI anatomy, assessment of motility, and modulation of neural and hormonal circuits. Such ingestible platforms could be a novel approach towards interrogating physiology, diagnosing disease, and delivering therapy non-invasively through the GI tract.