| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Xudong Wang Professor of Materials Science & Engineering |
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Research area Novel nanomaterial growth and nanodevice development for advanced bioelectronic systems and biomechanical energy harvesting.
What excites you about your work?
“What I’m really excited about is tying my fundamental materials research to practical human health issues, to benefit human beings. My research group is developing safe materials and devices that can go into different parts of the human body (skin, tissue, organs, bone) safely and convert body motions into electricity. We have multiple patents and publications for different aspects of our broader research direction.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“We have a patent to make flexible electrical film from amino acids, a patent for 3D printing soft materials for blood vessels, and a 3D printed material that is as strong as bone. We’re developing tissue-like stretchable materials that can effectively convert body motions into electricity without introducing any adverse effects. On the application side, we’re trying to use our materials to enable closed-loop electrical stimulations in the body to treat various diseases. For example, we’re trying to make artificial materials with the same mechanical properties as real blood vessels that can produce electricity based on blood pressure changes. We use energy that comes from the body itself to provide electricity to modulate nerves or stimulate tissue growth, and we have 2 patents on this—one for our vagus nerve stimulator for weight control, which is a device activated by stomach digestion that feeds an electrical stimulation back to the nerve to signal fullness. The second patent is for technology that uses skin motion to generate electricity and feedback to a skin wound to help it heal faster.”
Xudong is an expert in harnessing the natural energy generated by movement. This, coupled with his devices, will enable battery-free solutions for many application spaces.
– Michael Carey, WARF, Licensing Manager
Want to learn more?
Michael Carey, [email protected], 608.960.9867