Chi Hwan Lee Ph.D
Leslie A. Geddes Professor
Biomedical Engineering & Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University
Title: Wearable Biomedical Devices for Tele-Healthcare and Beyond
Abstract: My laboratory at Purdue University focuses on bridging the critical gap between engineering and unmet clinical needs through the innovation of wearable technologies. Our scholarly efforts are dedicated to addressing this gap using novel yet simple flexible micro-transducers with a clear path towards translation into measurable clinical impacts. We explore a wide variety of wearable biomedical devices that are safely attachable to the skin or eye, enabling continuous remote assessment of human health and chronic diseases. The potential applications of these devices are far-reaching, from healthcare to rehabilitation and telemedicine. In this talk, I will discuss: (1) Sticktronics - sticker-like thin film electronics that are flexibly attachable to the curved surfaces of arbitrary places, increasing the range of industrial and healthcare applications; (2) sensory skin patches that are tailored for various clinical needs of particular urgency in the telemedicine field; (3) smart contact lenses that are built on various commercial brands of soft contact lenses, which could be used to continuously monitor chronic ocular diseases such as glaucoma; and (4) injectable silicon nanoneedles that are built on flexible, biodegradable patches for painless and long-term sustained ocular drug delivery. I will present the results of detailed experimental and theoretical studies to provide insights into each of these topics.
Bio: Dr. Chi Hwan Lee is the Leslie A. Geddes Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, with courtesy appointments in Materials Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under Professor John A. Rogers, Dr. Lee has focused on developing wearable devices to address unmet clinical needs. He has received several prestigious awards, including the 2021 Sensors Young Investigator Award and the 2019 NIH Trailblazer Award. Dr. Lee has published over 90 journal papers, holds 10 U.S. patents, and has co-founded four startup companies.