Dmitry Kireev, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at UMass Amherst, is working to develop wearable and implantable heart monitors that are flexible, easy to apply and provide faster, more accurate results than current testing methods.
Kireev hopes that the wearable version will make self-monitoring more accessible. Current methods of testing for atherosclerosis include imaging technologies such as ultrasound, MRI or PET—which are all bulky and not available for at-home use.
The implantable version will be designed to be applied directly to the heart to assess how it’s working, and even deliver electrical stimulation. This is sort of what a pacemaker does, but with the significant difference that current pacemakers are rigid. In preliminary animal research, he has shown that similar graphene electrodes can correct a cardiac disfunction arrhythmia.
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