Xiaoyue Ni is creating wearable technology that goes beyond just tracking your steps, for everything from pregnancy to sleep patterns
In honor of Women's History Month, Duke celebrates the researchers whose inventions are destined to improve lives.
Xiaoyue Ni is creating flexible electronics that go on a person's skin to monitor everything from heart rate to muscle activity to brain function in real time.
The assistant professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science focuses her work on two main areas - smart materials and wearable technology.
She came to Duke in 2020 from Northwestern University, where she developed a wireless wearable device for continuous, noninvasive monitoring of human body mechanics and tissue-level diagnosis. With a second appointment in the School of Medicine's Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Ni is a strong example of Duke's cross-disciplinary research and one of the reasons she says she joined the university.
Last year, Ni became part of a collaborative research program that connects engineering and nursing. One of the projects uses a wireless device to support the enhanced communication needs of those with ALS. Another examines the effectiveness of a wearable sensor to detect communication issues between dementia patients and their caregivers, with the end goal of improving communication and reducing patients' social isolation.
She worries, however, that some of the research she has been working on for years is in jeopardy because of cuts in funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"(Without these funds) I will not be able to retain the postdoctoral researcher or Ph.D. students who play a pivotal role in advancing fundamental research on new non-invasive health monitoring technology," she says. "Critical scientific steps must be taken before commercial or clinical translation and without NIH support for fundamental biomedical research, we will be unable to complete them."
"You just send a signal using your phone, and hopefully that material will, for example, switch from one shape to another, or switch from soft to hard."
Xiaoyue Ni
She and her team continue to work on wearable electronic monitoring devices that are "skin-like" and can provide precise, non-invasive, long-term recording of a body's outer or inner workings in real time.
Think: A hard ultrasound wand tethered to a machine that's used to scan a pregnant woman's belly or someone's head to image their brain. Now, envision a Bluetooth-enabled device that is soft and can wrap around a body part, so it's not tethered to a machine, making it easier for the patient to move around.
This kind of research has numerous applications, such as in monitoring sleeping, exercising, coughing, swallowing, social interaction and other activities.
Her lab also seeks to morph or transform materials into different shapes or properties. Ni and her laboratory wanted to create something much more controllable that could reconfigure as often as it likes into any physically possible forms.
"You just send a signal using your phone, and hopefully that material will, for example, switch from one shape to another, or switch from soft to hard," Ni says. "We are focusing on engineering the shape or mechanics of matter that hasn't been predetermined, which is a pretty tall task to achieve, especially for soft materials."
Previous work on smart matter hasn't typically been programmable.
Instead, it has been programmed. For example, soft surfaces with designed elements can morph between a few shapes in response to light, heat or other stimuli triggers.
What is being developed could be useful for applications such as soft robotics, augmented reality, biomimetic materials and subject-specific wearables, Ni says.
"The programmable materials research is pushing the boundaries of how materials can interact with their environment and respond to external stimuli," Ni says. "Unlike traditional materials, which have fixed properties, these dynamically programmable materials can transform in real-time, like robot - changing shape, stiffness, or functions on demand. This could revolutionize various industries."
