Diagnosing and treating gastrointestinal tract diseases can be notoriously invasive and time-consuming: blood and stool lab work; biopsies, colonoscopies and endoscopies; and X-rays, CT scans and MRI imaging. But what if there was an alternative as simple as popping a Bayer aspirin?
Researchers in the University of Maryland’s MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory (MSAL) in the A. James Clark School of Engineering have developed an ingestible capsule with a new packaging technology that can protect its tiny components in the sometimes harsh environment of the GI tract, then dissolve at precise moments and locations needed to deliver drugs, reveal sensors or carry out other functions.