Multifunctional Polymer Fibers for Wearable Biosensors and Neural Medical Treatments

Abstract

As scientists learn more about disease pathologies and treat various medical conditions, the need to develop new tools grows rapidly. Multifunctional polymer fibers allow scientists to have a plethora of tools by fine tuning parameters to create affordable, unique, and adaptable devices for analyte sensing and disease treatment. The range of applications mutltifunctional fibers have in biomedical applications can be seen with sensing in wearable electronics or in neural probes due to their ability to easily integrate microfluidic systems, electrical, and optical means of sensing and stimulating. This thesis will demonstrate several ways fiber devices can be used in biomedicine and show the future direction of fiber based devices.