Jungkwun Kim

Chronic wounds are frequently associated with bacterial infection, elevated alkalinity, and persistent inflammation that collectively impair the normal healing process. Yet current wound care devices are passive and cannot actively respond to critical biochemical cues in real time. To address this limitation, we present a self-actuated, pH-responsive, hydrogel-driven microneedle actuator (pH-MA) that adaptively modulates its insertion depth in response to the local wound environment, enabling autonomous and site-specific control of microneedle–tissue engagement. The pH-MA system consists of a microneedle array supported by a pH-sensitive chemomechanical acrylamide-based hydrogel layer underneath. In an alkaline environment, the hydrogel swells and mechanically advances the microneedles to achieve deeper penetration into the wound bed, whereas in acidic conditions, i.e., in an acute wound, the hydrogel shrinks and retracts the microneedles. Experimental results show that the pH-MA produces microneedle expansion of up to 148 μm and contraction of up to 191 μm from the baseline during multi-cycle actuation. The force during insertion reaches up to 260 mN, exceeding the reported skin insertion threshold by more than threefold. In vivo testing using an LAC-infected murine wound model further demonstrated the feasibility of patch application and microneedle–tissue engagement. This pH-MA platform demonstrates compelling potential as a smart wound interface capable of adaptive, depth-controlled microneedle actuation.

This paper presents an implantable smart stent system for continuous in-stent blood pressure monitoring aimed at post–endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) surveillance. The proposed system employs a cylindrical piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane that functions simultaneously as a pressure sensor and mechanical stent structure. The PVDF membrane is engineered with a perforated design to enhance pressure sensitivity. An active 433 MHz wireless transmitter module, implemented on a custom flexible printed circuit board, is integrated with the stent to enable real-time wireless pressure data transmission. The system is evaluated using an in vitro physical model of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Experimental results demonstrate a wireless interrogation range of up to 100 cm, with an average diastolic pressure sensitivity of 3.35 mV/mmHg and a pulse pressure sensitivity ranging from 0.37 to 0.45 mV/mmHg. In addition, proof-of-concept endoleak conditions simulated in the physical model produce distinct voltage signatures, indicating the capability of the proposed smart stent to differentiate endoleak scenarios. These results demonstrate the feasibility of an actively powered, wireless smart stent as a sensing platform for post-EVAR pressure monitoring.

Continuous post-endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) surveillance is critical for patients who have undergone a stenting procedure. Despite it being life-threatening monitoring, studies reported that patients gradually discontinue the post-EVAR surveillance due to the significant burden associated with CT scans, X-rays, etc. Considering the importance and necessity of post-EVAR surveillance, we introduce a self-resonating flexible tube implanted in a standard clinically approved stent that enables wireless sensing of blood pressure inside an aneurysm through inductive coupling. To enable blood pressure monitoring outside the body, we designed and fabricated a spiral-type antenna, specifically crafted to capture the inherent resonance frequency of the self-resonating stent tube. To showcase the wireless pressure monitoring capability, a 3D-printed elastic model of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) was prepared. Our quantitative study validated the pressure-sensing capability with adequate sensitivity (up to 687.5 Hz/mmHg) when tissue was located between the stent and the external antenna. The wireless sensing also presents a consistent linear shift in resonance frequency across all tested measuring distances as the applied pressure ranges from 60 to 140 mmHg. The proposed self-resonating stent offers promising insights for improving post-EVAR surveillance.

To investigate the effect of the surface roughness of 3D-metal-printed sub-THz components, the WR-10 3-inch-long waveguide and 24 dBi rectangular horn antenna were 3D-metal-printed using a titanium alloy powder and a high-resolution 3D metal printer. The characterized surface roughness of the printed components was 17.27 µm in RMS from a 3D optical surface profiler, and a nodule ratio of 7.89 µm and surface ratio of 1.52 for Huray model from the analyzed SEM images. The measured results of the 3D-metal-printed waveguide and rectangular horn antenna were compared with the ones of commercial waveguide and horn antenna having the same shapes. The 3D-metal-printed waveguide has 4.02 dB higher loss than the commercial waveguide, which may be caused by an ohmic loss of 0.85 dB and a surface roughness loss of 2.81 dB. The 3D-metal-printed horn antenna has 2 dB higher loss then the commercial horn antenna, which may be caused by an ohmic loss of 0.2 dB, surface roughness of 0.1 dB and fabrication tolerance loss of 1.7 dB. The loss separation was done from the EM simulation by changing the conductor material and surface roughness.

Microneedles are highly sought after for medicinal and cosmetic applications. However, the current manufacturing process for microneedles remains complicated, hindering its applicability to a broader variety of applications. As diffraction lithography has been recently reported as a simple method for fabricating solid microneedles, this paper presents the experimental validation of the use of ultraviolet light diffraction to control the liquid-to-solid transition of photosensitive resin to define the microneedle shape. The shapes of the resultant microneedles were investigated utilizing the primary experimental parameters including the photopattern size, ultraviolet light intensity, and the exposure time. Our fabrication results indicated that the fabricated microneedles became taller and larger in general when the experimental parameters were increased. Additionally, our investigation revealed four unique crosslinked resin morphologies during the first growth of the microneedle: microlens, first harmonic, first bell-tip, and second harmonic shapes. Additionally, by tilting the light exposure direction, a novel inclined microneedle array was fabricated for the first time. The fabricated microneedles were characterized with skin insertion and force-displacement tests. This experimental study enables the shapes and mechanical properties of the microneedles to be predicted in advance for mass production and wide practical use for biomedical or cosmetic applications.

The entire dental implant microenvironment is successfully replicated in the microfluidic model via unprecedented high-aspect-ratio microchannels separated by closely-spaced micropillars.

Light plays an important role in influencing the nutritional quality of food crops, especially with regard to the health-promoting phytochemicals. However, its role in affecting the nutritional quality with regard to the essential nutrients is not well understood. In this study, the effects of preharvest UV-A treatment on the nutritional quality of lettuce (Lactuca sativa, cv. red-leaf ‘New Red Fire’ and green-leaf ‘Two Star’) in relation to the essential nutrients and health-promoting phytochemicals were explored. Lettuce plants were grown in a growth chamber and were subjected to supplemental UV-A LEDs (peak wavelength 375 nm) for a brief period (3–6 days) prior to harvest. UV-A LEDs were equipped with lenses to control the light dispersion. Many growth indices such as shoot fresh mass, leaf area, and leaf number were unaffected by supplemental UV-A in both varieties while shoot dry mass decreased in response to a 6-day UV-A treatment compared to the control. Leaf chlorophyll and carotenoid concentrations increased significantly in green-leaf lettuce after 3 or 6 days of UV-A treatment, but only after 3 days of UV-A treatment in red-leaf lettuce compared to the control. Leaf protein concentration increased significantly in both lettuce varieties along with a number of essential nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium, calcium, manganese, and sulfur in response to supplemental UV-A. Supplemental UV-A increased the accumulation of protein by approximately 48% in green-leaf lettuce and 31% in red-leaf lettuce compared to the control plants. Moreover, in addition to the above essential nutrients, green-leaf lettuce accumulated higher amounts of magnesium, copper, and zinc compared to the control plants, indicating that green-leaf lettuce was more responsive to preharvest supplemental UV-A treatment than red-leaf lettuce. However, the accumulation of total phenolic compounds and flavonoids in both varieties was lower under supplemental UV-A. Furthermore, the use of LED lenses did not have a consistent impact on most of the plant responses studied. Overall, the results indicate that a brief preharvest exposure of both red- and green-leaf lettuce varieties to UV-A increased their nutritional quality by enhancing the accumulation of protein and other major essential nutrients.

Microneedle arrays have been proposed in a wide range of biomedical applications, such as transdermal drug delivery and sensing. However, a scalable manufacturing process of precise microneedle fabrication of the microneedle has been challenged. This paper demonstrates UV-lithography-based one-step fabrication of fine-tuned bell-tip microneedles using a combination of light diffraction and the self-aligned lens effect. Microscale photopatterns can derive the predictive diffraction patterns where the higher light intensity at the center of the photopattern solidifies the liquid photoresist and forms a microlens shape in a self-aligned manner. The light through the microlens focuses down to a sharp point to form a conical shape for the body of the microneedle. Then light propagation through the vertex of the cone causes light emission, creating a fine bell-tip. The described light propagation behavior was characterized and explained in terms of the light intensity distribution from the diffraction based on the extended Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction model. The optics finite element analysis software was used to verify the light propagation and the intensity distribution. The step-by-step fabrication process was demonstrated using biocompatible photosensitive resins and validated the light attenuation and the cross-linking energy. The 20 × 20 bell-tip microneedles' array was able to be fabricated from the predicted model. Finally, a microneedle array with various shapes and heights on the same substrate was fabricated by single light exposure, demonstrating numerous achievable shapes using the proposed microneedle fabrication method.