Tiny electronic gadgets have greatly aided researchers and scientists in the field of medicine. These tiny gadgets can carry sensors to the remotest parts of human body. However, scientists have been trying to find a way to dispose them once they have served their purpose.
Now, University of Illinois researchers have come up with a novel solution to dispense with the electronic implants when they are no longer useful. They can, for instance, be used to carry a drug to a certain part in the body and once they have delivered the drug, they can then dissolve on their own. This is possible by using fully biodegradable electronics.
According to John Rogers, a physical chemist at the university, “You want the device to serve a useful function, but after that function is completed, you want it to simply disappear by dissolution and resorption into the body.”
The tiny electronic, researchers have proposed, can be programmed so that it would dissolve after a certain amount of time. This time can be assigned through by adding a silk-protein coating and letting the electronic sensor dissolve once the coating wears off. Researcher used such electronic implants in rats and were able to demonstrate that the sensors self-dissolved after a fixed amount of time.
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