Submitted to ECS2000 ----
Artificial Muscle As Glucose Sensor
And Insulin Delivery System
KeQin He1 and Marc J. Madou1,2
Departments of Chemistry1 and Materials Science and Engineering2
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
The ultimate goal of this work is to fabricate a
telemetric pill/Norplant-like controlled drug delivery
system, which can control drug release (i.e. insulin)
precisely and specifically according to the body's need.
The system we propose includes a drug reservoir lined
with a micromachined polymer valve actuator, a
microprocessor, micro battery and a sensor (Figure 1).
The sensor will monitor a biostimulus (i.e. glucose) and
send a signal to the delivery system through an
electronic circuit, and trigger the actuator to release the
prescribed amount of drug from the drug reservoir (i.e.
insulin).
The glucose sensor can be a separate detector or
can be integrated in the micromachined polymer valve
as our results will show. We have achieved drug release
using irreversible metal valves in which case small
amounts of drugs were entrapped in micromachined
chambers in a silicon wafer. Drug molecules were
released by electrochemically blasting open thin metal
membranes ("sacrificial valves") covering access holes
to the drug reservoirs 1,2. Different sizes of reservoirs
and different sizes of access holes enabled different
amounts and different drug release rates, respectively.
The above-described "sacrificial valves" can be used
only once. In more recent work, we replace irreversible
metal valves with reversible polymer or "artificial
muscle" valves, which can be used as the actuator in the
telemetric pill and can be used repeatedly.
Artificial muscle is a blend of a hydrogel and a
redox polymer, which dramatically swells and shrinks
under chemical and/or electrical stimuli. Although these
polymers have low Young modulus constants, they can
be used in valving and pumping of small amounts of
liquids. Inorganic actuators usually will not change size
more than 7 %. However, polymer actuators are found
to change size easily from swelling 160% in an alkaline
solution to shrinking 70% in an acid solution. A blend
of poly(2-hydroxyethyl) methacrylate and polyaniline
displays significant swelling and shrinking upon
application of an electrochemical bias (from –0.2 V to
+0.8 V (vs. SCE))3. In this type of artificial muscle,
polyaniline, a redox polymer (a mixed ion and electron
conductor), is regarded as the "electronic backbone" for
transferring electrons from a metal contact throughout the
muscle, while polyHEMA, a hydrogel (an ion conductor),
is responsible for most of the swelling and shrinking. The
ease to control electrical bias as well as the unique swelling
property of hydrogels makes the actuator more realistic for
biomedical applications.
The simplest design of the polymer valve is based on
an "insulator-conductor-insulator" sandwich structure with
through-holes as valve seats, which are drilled by Excimer-
laser ablation. The artificial muscle material is locally
polymerized on the electron-sputtered gold rims
sandwiched between two Pyralux PC1000 riston dry
photoresist film sheets, which are used as the insulating
layers. Preliminary results show that the artificial muscle
grew well on the 50 ~ 100 nm thick gold rims within the
through-holes. The opening and closing of the holes is
followed in situ with a video camera. Other valve designs
will be discussed. We will also present new results where
the muscle is actuated chemically (with glucose as the
biostimulant) rather than electrochemically.
(a) Telemetric pill/Norplant-like drug delivery system with drug
reservoir, biosensor, battery, and control circuit/transmitter.
(b) Swelling and shrinking of artificial muscle under a microscope.
References:
1. Madou, M. J. Fundamentals of Microfabrication, CRC Press, 1997.
2. Madou, M.J. and M. Tierney, "Micro-Electrochemical Valves and
Methods,” US Patent, 5,368,704 (1994).
3. Low, L.W.; He, K.Q.; Madou, J. M. Microactuators towards microvalves
for controlled drug delivery, Sensors and Actuators (accepted).
page 1