Electronic shrink wrap for the heart and other topics at the American Chemical Society meeting

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — Electronic sutures that monitor surgical incisions for healing and infection. Electronic films that cling to the heart like shrink wrap, monitoring and regulating the heartbeat and alerting the patient and cardiologist when medical attention is needed. Flexible plastic electronic appliques that stick to the skin like temporary tattoos and monitor hydration in athletes.

Those and other futuristic advances that marry electronics with the human body in ways that could enhance human health and performance are on the agenda here today at a symposium during the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.

Presentations in the symposium, entitled "Nanoscale and Nanomaterials: Enhanced Motion," are among almost 7,000 scheduled for the meeting, which continues through Thursday in the Indiana Convention Center and downtown hotels.

Materials for a new generation of electronic devices that promise to revolutionize health care in the world of tomorrow are part of a presentation by John A. Rogers, Ph.D., of the Departments of Materials Science, Engineering, and Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editorial advisory board member for ACS Nano.

Other presenters include

  • Paul S. Weiss, Ph.D., Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, and editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Nano.
  • Paula T. Hammond, Ph.D., Department of Chemical Engineering and the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and associate editor of ACS Nano.
  • Dawn Bonnell, Ph.D., Department of Materials Science, The University of Pennsylvania and editorial advisory board member for ACS Nano.
  • Henry Hess, Ph.D., Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University and editorial advisory board member for Nano Letters.

Abstracts of their talks appear below.

Source: Electronic shrink wrap for the heart and other topics at the American Chemical Society meeting