Esfandyar-Pour Recognized for Achievements in Biofabrication
Oct. 31, 2022 - The International Society for Biofabrication (ISBF) has selected Rahim Esfandyar-Pour for the 2022 Early Career Investigator Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of biofabrication. An assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Irvine, Esfandyar-Pour is one of three to receive this award this year, the only one in the U.S.
Esfandyar-Pour’s research focuses on developing smart nanobioelectronics for personalized health. A growing interdisciplinary field that combines nanomaterials with biology and electronics, nano-bioelectronics impacts many areas, including health care and medicine, energy, robotics, homeland security, and protecting the environment and the food supply.
Esfandyar-Pour develops next-generation smart, soft and flexible micro/nanobioelectronic devices with functional nanomaterials and transducers, as well as smart hybrid tissues with built-in electronics via emerging additive manufacturing technologies, such as 4D/3D printing. The devices are supported by intelligent computing techniques along with smart electronic systems to achieve continuous health monitoring and instant data analysis by providing interactive real-time feedback. The goal is to truly mimic and better understand an individual's overall dynamic health. For example, he recently created a self-powered and battery-less wristwatch-style wearable health monitor that can keep track of a wearer's vital signs and wirelessly communicate with a nearby smartphone. Such systems could enable continuous, battery-free, wireless, on-demand health monitoring anytime and anywhere. Another example is the development of a biofabricated in-vivo-mimicking 3D-lung-cancer-on-a-chip model to study the effect of external stimuli on the progress and inhibition of cancer metastasis. These types of models could find further applications for analyzing underlying disease mechanisms and screening candidate drugs' efficacy.
Esfandyar-Pour attended the society’s 2022 International Conference on Biofabrication held in September in Pisa, Italy, where he received his award.
“I was honored to receive this selective international award,” said Esfandyar-Pour. “I believe the next-generation and smart bioelectronics can be uniquely positioned as universal biomarker data harvesters enabling personalized medicine. Our convergent and multidisciplinary efforts aim to harness such technologies to help unravel complex physiological systems and be a step toward creating a new personalized medicine era.”
The ISBF, founded in 2010, is a nonprofit scientific and professional society that promotes advances in biofabrication research, development, education, training and medical and clinical applications. Its core purpose is to foster scientific and technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.
- Lori Brandt
