How is that to imagine that a ‘smart pill’ will be inside your body to monitor and sense all problems related to your Intestines and as soon as it gathers any unwanted information it will actively release the appropriate drugs that will be pre installed in it. We have all the biological knowledge of creating such a device, but whats more important is a need of such electronic material like circuits or batteries, that are capable of doing our work but not making any harm to our body. On September 21, Christopher Bettinger of Carnegie Mellon University presents a visionary approach for creating safe, consumable electronics, such as those powered by the charged ions within our digestive tracts.
According to the reports this electronic medical device will be edible . Since the 1970s, researchers have been talking to people to swallow prototypes that measure temperature and other biomarkers. As of now we have ingestible cameras for gastrointestinal surgeries and sensors attached to medications that are used to study how drugs mechanism in our body.
The Primary concern with this technique is the intoxication that it can cause for example, if the battery gets mechanically lodged in the tract that it could have unknown risks. As the breakfast we eat remains in our tract for up to 20 Hours similarly we would need a battery that will do its work in 20 hours and then it can be just degraded away.
Ingestible medical devices and even 3D printed pills will be giving green lights for patient use in recent years despite their atypical properties. Bettinger explains that if an electronic pill can make better use of expensive medications, then the amount needed for each patient can be reduced.
Bettinger said “There are many rapid advances in materials, inventions, and discoveries that can be brought to bear on medicinal devices and If we can engineer devices that are more manageable it would be an attractive proportion for patients within the next 5-10 years.”
