Researching BCINanoMesh with Umar Ahmed Badami
Contributor Alina Rahim chats with Umar Ahmed Badami about his club, Explore-A-Vision, and recent research with BCINanoMesh
Pixel Journal: Could you describe the general idea of your project/club?
Umar Ahmed Badami: I've always loved the idea of scientific research and working on STEM projects. There are a couple of great competitions that bring together students to develop solutions to real-world problems using STEM. I decided to make a club called Explore-A-Vision to allow students to enter these types of competitions or to just explore science ideas. This is the club's 2nd year at the OHS, and we had a fantastic time with Hannah Yoon, Selin Longmire and myself working on research involving the BCINanoMesh.
PJ: What brought you to this?
UB: We developed the idea based on our combined interests in neuroscience and engineering, and came up with a futuristic concept aimed to monitor the progress of patients with dehabilitating brain strokes.
PJ: What does your idea entail?
UB: The concept has two key parts: a nanoscale wire mesh, which would access the electrical signals from neurons, and a nanosized circuit board to transmit the signals outside the brain to an external device. The nanoscale mesh would have silicon field effect transistors (FETs), which would pick up the electrical signals, and would transmit those along SU-8 polymer-coated wires (biocompatible coating) to input-output pads (I/O), which would be attached to the SU-8 covered circuit board. The circuit board would also be covered with the SU-8 polymer, and for each input-output pad there would be a low-noise amplifier (LNA, increases signals' power) and a pulse-width modulator (PWM, converts the signals into binary code, which is readable by a computer). A multiplexer would combine all the signals into one, which would once again be amplified using a power amplifier (PA), and be transmitted to an external device using a nanoscale Bluetooth Low-Energy antenna. The entire circuit board would be powered by a nanoscale flexible battery.
PJ: What are your hopes for this?
UB: We hope that this idea gets improved upon and becomes practical in the future.