Imagine a heart bypass graft that acts like a tiny power plant, turning the movement of your blood into electricity. This removes the need for bulky batteries that eventually run out and require more surgery to replace. It allows the graft to send health alerts directly to a smartphone, letting doctors catch problems before they become emergencies.
Traditional vascular grafts have failure rates up to 50% because they cannot be monitored in real-time. Current implantable electronics are limited by battery life, making continuous monitoring impossible.
A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for energy harvesting, a miniaturized power management unit, and a wireless transmission system integrated into a vascular graft (iGraft).
If you are a medical device company dealing with graft failure rates up to 50% due to thrombosis or infection — this project developed the iGraft that uses energy harvesting to monitor performance and send alerts to avoid failure.
If you are a digital health provider dealing with the limitation of battery life in implantable systems — this project developed a wireless system and power management unit that transmits data to smartphones or watches.
If you are a materials company dealing with the lack of active sensing in vascular grafts — this project developed triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) that convert mechanical body energy into electrical power.
Based on available project data, specific pricing or cost structures for the final product have not been disclosed.
The project is currently in the validation phase using in vitro and in vivo testing; industrial scaling details are not provided in the current reports.
Based on available project data, there is no specific mention of patents or licensing agreements, though the project is led by research institutions.
The system is designed to wirelessly transmit data to external electronic devices such as smartphones or watches, which then alert the healthcare system.
The project period runs from 2023-10-01 to 2026-11-30, suggesting the technology is still in the development and validation stage.
The consortium is purely academic and research-driven, consisting of 4 partners from 3 countries (AT, ES, PT). With 3 universities and 1 research institution, there is a 0% industry ratio, indicating the project is currently focused on high-risk, high-reward scientific discovery rather than immediate commercialization.
Contact I3S - Instituto de Investigacao e Inovacao em Saude da Universidade do Porto
Contact us to bridge the gap between this research and your cardiovascular product pipeline.
