Indigenous Advanced Healthcare Technologies

Biomedical and Electronic (10-6 to 10-9) Engineering Systems (BEES) Laboratory and Nanofab for Advanced Microsystems & Biomedical Devices for Clinical Research (https://labs.dese.iisc.ac.in/beeslab/) at the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering (DESE) works on developing a plethora of invasive and non-invasive technologies as interventions for understanding the functioning of the brain and therapeutics. The group led by Prof. Hardik J. Pandya has indigenised the development of state-of-the-art neural implants for rat models. The developed multichannel flexible devices can conformally cover the rats’ brain surface, collecting high fidelity Electrocorticogram (ECoG) signals while eliciting minimal anti-inflammatory responses suitable for chronic studies. These devices have been applied to understand the efficacy of anti-epileptic drugs and to decode the functioning of the motor cortex to identify novel targets for treating Parkinson’s disease. The competency of the fabricated arrays in acquiring baselines, induced epileptic activities, recovered baselines after anti-epileptic drug administration, somatosensory evoked potentials, and chronic baselines were demonstrated after implantation in animal models. Time-frequency analysis of the acquired signals shows a clear delineation in pre-processed signal amplitude, power spectrum and spectrogram among the signals under different neurophysiological conditions. As an additional step, the team has also developed futuristic bioresorbable arrays to avoid a second surgery after the study for retrieving the devices once the device translates to humans. The group has also developed several configurations of silicon-based microneedles to record Local Field Potentials (LFPs) from the cortical columns to help localise the seizure onset region and track the seizure progression.

On a non-invasive front, the group has designed, developed, and validated a wearable, portable headband to assess hearing capabilities in human adults by extracting Event-Related Potential (ERP). As the next step, the headband-based system consisting of fundamental building blocks, including auditory stimuli generation, biopotential acquisition, system embodiment design, and subsequent ERP extraction unit, has been modified as a neonatal hearing screening tool. The technology has won multiple accolades during the Siemens SmartX Health Hackathon 2022 and the SHIFT Hackathon 2022. The group is also developing an intraoperative probe for brain tumour delineation. The probe integrated with a novel Depth Electrical Impedance Tomographic (Depth EIT) and viscoelastic characterisation approach can potentially identify tumour margins with sub-millimetre resolution and provide the surgeons insights on the tumour grade. The technology has won the BIRAC SITARE (Students Innovations for Translation & Advancement of Research Explorations) – (Gandhian Young Technological Innovation) GYTI Award 2021 and the Sunpharma Science Foundation Science Scholar Awards 2022.

BEES Lab has also developed a multi-spectral pen for breast cancer margin assessment that uses multiwavelength near-infrared light to differentiate between tumour and normal using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The group has also developed several minimally invasive tools, such as cardiac ablation catheters integrated with MEMS-based triaxial force sensors for providing haptic feedback to the surgeon and tracheal incubation catheter for measuring tracheal stenosis through airflow and cartilage stiffness measurement. The lab also works on several other technologies, such as Lab-on-PCB-based systems for Point-of-Care Disease Screening and Diagnosis.

References:

1. Rathin K. Joshi, Varun Kumar M, Megha Agarwal, Avinash Rao, Mahesh Jayachandra, Latika Mohan, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Spatiotemporal analysis of interictal EEG for automated seizure detection and classification.” Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, volume 79, part 1, 104086, 2023.

2. Suman Chatterjee, Tushar Sakorikar#, Arjun BS#, Rathin K. Joshi, Abhay Sikaria, Mahesh Jayachandra, Vikas V, Hardik J. Pandya, “A flexible implantable microelectrode array for recording electrocorticography signals from rodents.” Biomedical Microdevices, 24(31), 2022. [# Equal contribution]

3. Arjun B. S., Alekya B, Hari R. S., Vikas V., Anita Mahadevan, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Electromechanical Characterisation of Human Brain Tissues: A Biomarker for Tumor Delineation.” IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. ,2022.

4. Arjun B. S., Anil Vishnu G. K., Shilpa Rao, Manish Beniwal, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Electrical Phenotyping of Human Brain Tissues: An Automated System for Tumor Delineation.” IEEE Access, 2022.

5. Anju Joshi, Anil Vishnu G. K., Smitha P. K; Ashlesh Kadandale, Hari R. S., Manjula Das, Hardik J. Pandya, “Lab-on-PCB-Based Electrical Immunosensing Platform for Point-of-Care Detection of SARS-CoV-2.” IEEE Sensors Letters, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-4, Jan. 2023, Art no. 4500204.

6. V S N Sitaramgupta V, Arjun B S, Uttam M. Pal, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Design and Analysis of MEMS-based Force Sensors for Catheter Contact Force Measurements.” IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 22, no. 13, pp. 13451-13461, 2022.

7. Alekya B, V S N Sitaramgupta V, Arjun B S, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Sensor for Meso-scale Tissue Stiffness Characterization.” IEEE Sensors Journal, 2022.

8. V S N Sitaramgupta V, Tushar Sakorikar, and Hardik J. Pandya, “A MEMS-based Force Sensor: Packaging and Proprioceptive Force Recognition through Vibro-Haptic Feedback for Catheters.” IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 2022.

9. Arif M. Kamal, Uttam M. Pal, Adithya Kumar, Gunabhi Ram Das, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Toward the development of portable light emitting diode‐based polarisation spectroscopy tools for breast cancer diagnosis.” Journal of Biophotonics, 2021.

10. V S N Sitaramgupta V, Arjun B S, Bhagaban Behera, Deepak Padmanabhan, and Hardik J. Pandya, “A Ring-Shaped MEMS-based Piezoresistive Force Sensor for Cardiac Ablation Catheters.” IEEE Sensors, 2021.

11. Anil Vishnu G. K., Gayatri Gogoi, Bhagaban Behera, Saeed Rila, Annapoorni Rangarajan, and Hardik J. Pandya, “RapidET: A MEMS-based platform for label-free and rapid demarcation of tumor from normal breast biopsy tissues.” Microsystems and Nanoengineering, 2022.

12. Anil Vishnu G. K., Tushar Sakorikar, Arun Baby, Chandramani Singh, Annapoorni Rangarajan, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Bimodal Characterization of Breast Biopsy Tissues using MEMS-based Biochips: Towards Improved Tumor Delineation.” IEEE Sensors Journal, 2021.

13. Uttam M. Pal, Anil Vishnu GK, Manoj Varma, Jayant S. Vaidya, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Thermo-optic measurements and their inter-dependencies for delineating cancerous breast biopsy tissue from adjacent normal.” Journal of Biophotonics, 2022.

14. Arif Mohd Kamal, Uttam M. Pal, Ashika Nayak, Tejaswi Medisetti, Arjun B S, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Towards Development of LED-based Time-Domain Near-IR Spectroscopy System for Delineating Breast Cancer from Adjacent Normal Tissue.” IEEE Sensors, 2021.

15. Uttam M. Pal, Ashika Nayak, Tejaswi Medisetti, Gayatri Gogoi, Himanshu Shekhar, M.S.N. Prasad, Jayant S. Vaidya, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Hybrid Spectral-IRDx: Near-IR and Ultrasound Attenuation System for Differentiating Breast Cancer from Adjacent Normal Tissue.” IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, PP:10.1109/TBME.2021.3077582, 2021.

16. B Alekya, V S N Sitaramgupta V , B S Arjun, V Bhushan, Kevin Abishek, Sanjay Rao, Yeongjin Kim, and Hardik J Pandya. “An intubation catheter integrated with flow sensors and smart actuators for characterising airflow patterns in stenosed trachea: an objective guide for CAO management.” Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 2021.

17. Uttam M. Pal, Anil Vishnu GK, Saeed Rila, Saahil Shroff, Gokul A M, Deb Baruah, Jayant S. Vaidya, Gayatri Gogoi, and Hardik J. Pandya, “Portable near-infrared spectroscopy tool using multi-spectral non-contact probes to delineate normal and cancerous breast tissue.” IEEE TBioCAS, 2020.