Cyber-Secure Bio-Electronic Capsules: Transforming Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring

By Brendan Galvin, CISE Staff

Pioneering an unprecedented method for tracking gastrointestinal (GI) health and environmental conditions, Rabia Yazicigil, a CISE Faculty Affiliate and Assistant Professor at Boston University (ECE, BME), has been awarded the prestigious 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award. Yazicigil’s research on cyber-secure biological systems (CSBS), particularly the miniaturized ingestible bio-electronic capsule, is the first of its kind in an area of bioelectronics never seen before.

Her research, featured in the Nature journal, concentrated on the development of the capsule that will provide a platform for safe, accurate, and reliable biochemical sensing. “Cyber-secure biological systems are basically living sensors and they are built from engineered biological systems augmented with solid-state circuits. These biological systems are engineered to sense different analytes with very high sensitivity and specificity in harsh environments.,” she said. “This could be a human gut, the environment, water, or even inside a bioreactor.”

The device integrates genetically-engineered biosensors with a photodetector and readout chip to track molecules in the tract that could lead to adverse health effects such as inflammation. It monitors the tract in real-time and can diagnose diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease earlier than currently possible. Currently, there is no method available to track or record the short-lived molecules in the GI tract in real-time. Therefore, Yazicigil is working to expand the capabilities of the capsule. This capsule not only allows for continuous monitoring of the tract, but also grants frequent and remote access to the data, helping doctors monitor patients undergoing treatment.

Additional security within these devices will prevent the disruption of the tracking and allow for seamless data transfer to hospitals or mobile devices. “The previous capsule was very low power, now we are looking at how we can harvest energy from the GI tract itself to power the device,” she said. “There’s a self powering aspect and then the other component is can you also have multiple modalities for both sensing and calibration so that you generate more reliable data.”

The ingestible capsule not only serves the human body but also has applications for safety measures such as wastewater surveillance. This capsule can tap into the chemical domain of the water, sensing toxic chemicals or pathogens. Then, the data can be communicated via a wireless bioelectronic sensor network to alert the user of the dangers in the water.

In addition to her field work, the award will also allow her to provide educational opportunities for interested students and offer career development support for women in STEM. She hopes to develop new academic courses on semiconductor chip design, increase underrepresented student participation in research, and promote diversity by organizing IEEE SSCS Women-in-Circuits workshops. “I plan to work with the Society of Women Engineers and Graduate Women in Science and Engineering at BU to organize a hackathon that demonstrates some of these security vulnerabilities of bioelectronic sensors,” she said. A hackathon engages student participants in rapid and collaborative engineering and this challenge is an opportunity for participants to collaborate and solve problems or identify new areas of interest.

Yazicigil’s ingestible capsule was her first bioelectronics project. “It paints a lot of new opportunities in environmental monitoring, sustainable manufacturing, and also other challenges in healthcare,” she said.

While the NSF CAREER Award will make a significant contribution to the development of the ingestible capsule and Yazicigil’s research, it will also lead to the contributions from others in the STEM world, broadening the effect of the award.

“What excites me is to interface with emerging fields like synthetic biology, so that way, we are not only impacting our own fields of study, but also we will basically educate people who are also impacting their society.”