China Invents Dissolvable, Implantable Electronic Resistor

The electronic content of implantable orthopedic devices is likely to grow significantly over the next decade. Could these so-called smart implants benefit from a dissolvable implantable electronic resistor?

Research funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China has developed a functional dissolvable device made out of egg albumin, magnesium and tungsten. Under dry conditions, the components of their device worked for more than three months. In water, they dissolved in two to ten hours.

The component is called a “memristor”, or memory resistor, which they defined as a new type of resistor that regulates the flow of electric current and also can ‘remember’ charges.

The researchers, Jikui Luo, Xiaozhi Wang and colleagues, wrote about their discovery, “This work demonstrates a new way to fabricate biocompatible and dissolvable electronic devices by using cheap, abundant, and 100% natural materials for the forthcoming bioelectronics era.” According to Stacy Lawrence, who wrote about the work for Fierce Medical Devices, “biocompatibility and closed-loop devices are trends that are likely to help drive the medical segment in the long-term future.”

Materials used in the manufacture of data-collecting devices are presently not compatible with long term implantation in the human body. Yet researchers anticipate that the new materials they are working with can be used to create devices that can be implanted in the body. These will be able to provide feedback to update treatment in a manner “that could ultimately be automatic, ” they wrote.