EE faculty members Babak Parviz and Brian Otis, along with UW collaborators Buddy D. Ratner and Tueng Shen, have received a two million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI).
The objective of their project, named “Second Window”, is to design, build, and test a fundamentally new, non-invasive, and intelligent interface with the human body for improving health. Their approach is to construct a functional contact lens that incorporates electronic biosensors and continuously monitors biomarkers on the surface of the eye. The contact lens will harvest energy, control and read sensors, and convey the collected information to the outside world. The data produced could help detect and monitor conditions such as diabetes (via glucose detection), heart attack (lactate detection), or bacterial infection (biofilm detection), which can lead to blindness.
More information about the Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation can be found at the NSF EFRI website.
Information about this specific grant can be found here.