Event Details:
John Rogers, PhD
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois
Implantable optoelectronic and microfluidic systems for neuroscience
Abstract: Successful integration of optoelectronic and microfluidic systems with the brain has the potential to accelerate basic scientific discoveries and their translation into clinically relevant technologies. Specifically, an ability to insert light sources, detectors, multiplexed sensors, programmable microfluidic networks and other components into precise locations of the deep brain, or to laminate them onto targeted surfaces of the brain could yield unique and important types of function. In this talk, we describe materials and assembly techniques that enable injectable and flexible classes of cellular-scale optoelectronic and microfliudic systems, with examples of use in optogenetics and pharmacological studies, including wireless, programmed complex behavioral control over freely moving, unthethered animals. The ability of these ultrathin, mechanically compliant, biocompatible systems to afford minimally invasive operation in or on the soft tissues of the mammalian brain foreshadow applications in other organ systems, with potential for broad utility in biomedical science and engineering.
Bio: Professor John A. Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989. From MIT, he received SM degrees in physics and in chemistry in 1992 and the PhD degree in physical chemistry in 1995. From 1995 to 1997, Rogers was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department in 1997, and served as Director of this department from the end of 2000 to 2002. He is currently Swanlund Chair Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, with a primary appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and joint appointments in many other departments. He is Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.
Rogers’ research includes fundamental and applied aspects of materials for unusual electronic and photonic devices, with an emphasis on bio-integrated and bio-inspired systems. He has published more than 450 papers and is inventor on over 80 patents, more than 50 of which are licensed or in active use. Rogers is a Fellow of the IEEE, APS, MRS and AAAS, and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. His research has been recognized with many awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009, the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2011, the MRS Mid-Career Researcher Award and the Robert Henry Thurston Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) in 2013, and the 2013 Smithsonian Award for Ingenuity in the Physical Sciences.