Examples of wearable electrotherapy developed at CCNY, and its uses.
Imagine going to the pharmacy and getting an adhesive bandage that applies gentle energy to accelerate wound healing, reduce infection or enhance skin complexion. Or sticking a patch on your forehead to control a migraine, depression or other brain disorders. Or getting your next vaccine booster not through a needle, but from a sticker. These may soon be a reality, thanks to cutting-edge research at The City College of New York led by the Grove School of Engineering’s Marom Bikson, Mohamad Fallahrad, and Dean Alexander Couzis.
Entitled “Wearable Disposable Electrotherapy,” the CCNY team’s work appears in the journal Nature Communications. “It’s a novel platform for medicine. Single-use millimeter-thick adhesive patches, delivering a specific therapy. Applications include skin healing, applying energy to treat brain disorders, and delivering drugs through the skin,” said Bikson, who leads the Neural Engineering Group in the Grove School.
The disposable single-use devices, which is as discreet as adhesive bandages, is activated simply by placement on the body. The device senses the body and, over a few minutes or an hour, delivers a single therapy dose. The device can then be removed and thrown away. “We call it wearable medicine,” said Bikson.
What makes Wearable Disposable Electrotherapy a technological breakthrough is that each patch is a thin electronic device able to deliver a therapeutic dose, but there are no packaged batteries or electrical components. “Since each patch is single use and disposable, we needed environmentally benign materials - so, no electronics,” said Couzis. “Wearable Disposable Electrotherapy is the first electronics-free device that can sense and change the body. It took multiple innovations in chemical, electrical, and biomedical engineering to achieve this.”
The prescribed therapy dose is regulated by dozens of printed chemical components. Together they form a thin 3D electrochemical. “Without using any electrical components, we created a device that self-powers and regulates therapy out of its electrochemical network,” added Couzis. “For each application, such as wound healing, electrical therapy, or a drug-delivery patch, a unique electrochemical structure is created.” But using only scalable additive printing technology and abundant materials, the cost of each device is reduced to pennies.”
The use of the device determines its shape and function. For wound healing and skin enhancement applications, Wearable Disposable Electrotherapy are made like adhesive bandages, but with the added benefit of bioelectric healing. For uses such as migraine, depression, or dementia a patch across the forehead delivers therapeutic electricity to the brain. For drug delivery, such a pain medication or even vaccines, the drug is also built into the device which delivers it through the skin when the patch is applied.
“We have produced prototypes for each application and proven they deliver the prescribed therapy. We are not planning clinical trials. For each use case we are working with leading medical centers to test therapy efficacy,” said Bikson.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
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jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu