The 2,545th Meeting of the Society

November 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Powell Auditorium at the Cosmos Club

Edible Smart Pills

Ingestible devices that can sense, sample, and treat disease

Reza Ghodssi

Distinguished University Professor and Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering
Executive Director of Research and Innovation, UMD MATRIX Lab
Director, MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory
University of Maryland

About the Lecture

This lecture will discuss ingestible “smart pills” and the wider use of MEMS in health-care devices, including systems that can travel through the gastrointestinal tract while sensing biomarkers and tissue conditions and emerging capabilities for autonomous biopsy, controlled local drug delivery, and less invasive diagnosis and monitoring.

About the Speaker

Dr. Ghodssi’s research has focused on microelectromechanical systems, microsensors, actuators and integrated micro- and nanotechnologies for biomedical and environmental applications. A major part of his work concerns ingestible capsule systems that can sense conditions within the gastrointestinal tract, collect or analyze biological information, communicate results wirelessly and deliver drugs or other treatments at selected locations.