Dae-Hyeong Kim (1,2) Professor in School of Chemical and Biological Engineering of Seoul National University

Recent advances in soft bioelectronics have garnered significant attention, largely due to their potential applications in personalized, bio-integrated healthcare devices. The mechanical mismatch between conventional electronic devices and soft human tissues or organs often presents various challenges, such as low signal-to-noise ratios in biosensing, inflammation or excessive immune responses near implanted devices, and inadequate electrical or chemical stimulation in feedback therapies. To address these issues, novel materials for ultra-flexible and stretchable electronic devices have been developed, as their mechanical and material properties are more compatible with in vivo cellular environments, and these devices hold great potential for solving the aforementioned challenges. Particularly, in the development of such bioelectronic devices, nanomaterials and their composites with hydrogels and elastomers have been actively researched. This talk presents unconventional soft electronic materials and device fabrication strategies, as well as their applications to diagnosing and treating major diseases including cardiovascular diseases. The integration of two different types of soft conductive materials and the incorporation of wireless power supply technologies in the unconventional bioelectronic platform offer additional opportunities. Key challenges in the future technological roadmap and potential technological solutions will also be briefly discussed. These efforts in developing unconventional materials and bioelectronic devices are expected to contribute significantly to addressing unresolved issues in clinical medicine.

¹ Center for Nanoparticle Research, Institute for Basic Science, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

² School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

Dae-Hyeong Kim obtained B.S. and M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea, in 2000 and 2002, respectively. He received his Ph. D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he was a post-doctoral research associate at University of Illinois. He joined Seoul National University in 2011 and is currently a professor in School of Chemical and Biological Engineering of Seoul National University. He has been serving as an associate director of Center for Nanoparticle Research of Institute for Basic Science (IBS) from 2017. He has been focusing on the research of nanomaterials and deformable devices and their application to bio-integrated and bio-inspired electronics. He has been recognized with several awards including George Smith Award (2009), TR 35 award (2011), Hong Jin-ki Creative Award (2015), SCEJ Award (2016), and Korea Young Scientist Award (2017). He was also selected as one of the highly cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics in 2018-2024.