Simiao NIU

60% of human population lives with at least one chronic disease (e.g., cardiovascular diseases and diabetes). Effective management of complex chronic diseases requires body-wide, long-term, accurate, and continuous monitoring of multiple physiological signals to precisely determine its pathological state.

As an assistant professor in Rutgers University, Simiao Niu’s major research goal is to develop such wearable electronic network technology platform to realize continuous accurate monitoring and diagnosis of multiple chronic diseases. He has developed various disease model technologies centered around flexible, battery-free, and wireless bioelectronic technology platforms.

Among them, the most representative ones are flexible wireless smart bandages that can accelerate wound healing, and can active biointegrated living electronics (ABLE) platforms for managing inflammation.

The bandage can harvest RF energy, electrically inducing cell migration and accelerated healing. Moreover, it can simultaneously monitor the healing process by sensing wound temperature and impedance. The integrated ABLE platform shows exciting results in managing skin inflammation diseases such as psoriasis in mouse models, promising for rapid clinical applications. 

Simiao also developed a soft body area sensor network platform that could simultaneously read out multiple human physiological signals.

Looking ahead, he plans to lead his team in exploring new wireless communication technologies, new materials, devices and sensors, as well as machine learning algorithms for biosignal processing to build a wireless bioelectronic network.

With newly developed hardware prototypes, his team plans to apply them to real clinical patients for long-term, continuous, and autonomous chronic disease management applications. Ultimately, this technology will help to reduce chronic disease mortality, lower medical costs, and provide a better quality of life for patients.