Stretchable electronics on elastomeric substrates requires fragile and brittle device materials to be placed on stiff, mechanical distinct subcircuit islands. We deposited a diamondlike carbon (DLC) film at room temperature on a silicone substrate by pulsed laser ablation, and patterned the film into an array of 200×200μm2 islands. When the substrate was uniaxially stretched to a strain of 25%, the islands remained adherent to the substrate and only deformed by ∼5%, while the exposed substrate stretched by more than 30%. A row of 11 DLC islands interconnected with gold stretchable metallization maintained end-to-end electrical conduction during a mechanical cycle to 20% tensile strain. This demonstration of electrically interconnected stiff islands on silicone illustrates two important steps toward fully integrated, elastically stretchable electronics.

Development of tissue-engineered bone constructs has recently focused on the use of electrospun composite scaffolds seeded with stem cells from various source tissues. In this study, we fabricated electrospun composite scaffolds consisting of beta-tricalcium phosphate (TCP) crystals and poly(L-lactic acid) (PLA) at varying loading levels of TCP (0, 5, 10, 20 wt%) and assessed the composite scaffolds' material properties and ability to induce proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) in the presence of osteogenic differentiating medium. The electrospun scaffolds all exhibited a nonwoven structure with an interconnected porous network. With the addition of TCP, the fiber diameter increased with each treatment ranging from 503.39 +/- 20.31 nm for 0 wt% TCP to 1267.36 +/- 59.03 nm for 20 wt% TCP. Tensile properties of the composite scaffolds were assessed and the overall tensile strength of the neat scaffold (0 wt% TCP) was 847 +/- 89.43 kPA; the addition of TCP significantly decreased this value to an average of 350.83 +/- 38.57 kPa. As the electrospun composite scaffolds degraded in vitro, TCP was released into the medium with the largest release occurring within the first 6 days. Human ASCs were able to adhere, proliferate and osteogenically differentiate on all scaffold combinations. DNA content increased in a temporal manner for each scaffold over 18 days in culture although for the day 12 timepoint, the 10 wt% TCP scaffold induced the greatest hASC proliferation. Endogenous alkaline phosphatase activity was enhanced on the composite PLA/TCP scaffolds compared to the PLA control particularly by day 18. It was noted that at the highest TCP loading levels of 10 and 20 wt%, there was a dramatic increase in the amount of cell-mediated mineralization compared to the 5 wt% TCP and the neat PLA scaffold. This work suggests that local environment cues provided by the biochemical nature of the scaffold can accelerate the overall osteogenic differentiation of hASCs and encourage rapid ossification.

This article describes the design of a new and attractive minimally-invasive bicomponent microneedle sensing device for the electrochemical monitoring of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate and glucose. The new device architecture relies on the close integration of solid and hollow microneedles into a single biosensor array device containing multiple microcavities. Such microcavities facilitate the electropolymeric entrapment of the recognition enzyme within each microrecess. The resulting microneedle biosensor array can be employed as a minimallyinvasive on-body transdermal patch, obviating the extraction/sampling of the biological fluid, thereby simplifying device requirements. The new concept is demonstrated for the electropolymeric entrapment of glutamate oxidase and glucose oxidase within a poly(o-phenylenediamine) (PPD) thin film. The PPD-based enzyme entrapment methodology enables the effective rejection of coexisting electroactive interferents without compromising the sensitivity or response time of the device. The resulting microneedle-based glutamate and glucose biosensors thus exhibit high selectivity, sensitivity, speed, and stability in both buffer and undiluted human serum. High-fidelity glutamate measurements down to the 10 mM level are obtained in serum. The attractive recess design also serves to protect the enzyme layer upon insertion into the skin. This simple, yet robust microneedle design is well-suited for diverse biosensing applications in which real-time metabolite monitoring is a core requirement.