Dr. Dmitry Kireev has been working as a Research Associate at the University of Texas at Austin since 2018 in the group of Prof. Deji Akinwande, working on merging the fields of Neuroengineering, 2D materials, Bioelectronics, Neuromorphic Computing, and Nanoelectronics, contributing to the development of bioelectronic devices with long-standing implications in Healthcare and Medicine.
He finished his PhD work in 2017 at the Institute of Bioelectronics (ICS-8/IBI-3) of Forschungszentrum Julich and RWTH Aachen University, Germany, working on graphene-based devices for neuronal and cardiac in vitro bioelectronics. He is a recipient of a prestigious EMM-NANO scholarship and performed his MSc studies in KULeuven (2012) and Chalmers University of Technology (2013) with majors in nanoelectronics.
In September 2023, Dr. Kireev started Tenure Track career at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the BME department. The major focus of the highly interdisciplinary “2D Bioelectronics” laboratory is to enable advanced bioelectronic interfaces using 2D materials.
Summary of the paper
If you own a sphygmomanometer (the cuff that inflates and deflates) or have visited a doctor where one was used on you, you had your Blood Pressure (BP) measured. However, BP varies over time (every minute, especially if you exercise or have a disease). Hence, continuous tracking of BP is essential not only for athletes or people with hypertension but for everyone who wants to be on top of their own health. Surprisingly, state-of-the-art sphygmomanometers have been around for over a hundred years and remain essentially unchanged. They are big, inconvenient, and not continuous.
Our breakthrough technology published in Nature Nanotechnology in June 2022, has disrupted the existing state-of-the-art, providing a transparent, self-administrable tattoo that can continuously monitor an individual's BP. The published work is a collaborative effort between UT Austin and Texas A&M universities and combines the two key technologies from two sides together: graphene tattoos and bioimpedance modality.
When measuring bioimpedance, a small amplitude electrical current is injected into the skin by one tattoo and then recorded at another tattoo site. There is a correlation between bioimpedance and arterial volume (which changes dynamically during blood pressure waves). The correlation, unfortunately, is not exactly linear, as such a machine learning model is needed to analyze it. The final solution is dazzling: cuffless and purely electrical wearable technology for continuous BP tracking. The beauty of graphene tattoos is in simplicity and user-friendliness; they are put on human wrist just like a childhood tattoo image. This user-friendliness implies that it is likely used by the broader society, leading to disease prevention and healthier living. The superior accuracy of our approach is not affected by the subject's skin color, body-mass-index, or age. This creative, user-friendly, and affordable solution will help to save lives and eventually reduce mortality.
