Ingestible electronics can now be guided to sever themselves into smaller, passable pieces on command. In collaboration with Prof. Alex Abramson’s team at Georgia Tech, Sean Healy and Angsagan Abdigazy led the development of ESCAPE (Excretable Self-Cleaving Autonomous Pill Electronics) — a modular ingestible capsule that monitors luminal oxygen levels, triggers targeted drug delivery (demonstrated with upadacitinib for inflammatory bowel disease), and safely breaks apart into passable components on command, addressing obstruction risk in vivo. 💊✨

Paper title: Self-severing circuits facilitate passage of ingestible electronic sensor-guided therapeutics

Publication:

  1. Self-severing circuits facilitate passage of ingestible electronic sensor-guided therapeutics Sean Healy, Angsagan Abdigazy, McKenna Clinch, Jason Y. Chin, Mohammad Shafiqul Islam, Zachary Lee, Julia Z. Ding, Joy Jackson, Ramy Ghanim, Xavier Manigault, and others bioRxiv, 2026 Preprint

    Ingestible electronics enable the tracking and treatment of gastrointestinal and systemic diseases. However, bulky batteries and circuit boards require large capsules that can result in bowel obstruction, a medical emergency. Here, we engineered a 9 x 26 mm electronic pill capable of triggered severing into tiny pieces with sizes clinically proven to reduce obstruction risk. Our capsule enables multicomponent circuit boards to connect with separately encapsulated powering elements via conductive, interlocking connections. Heat induced softening of polyethylene glycol/polycaprolactone channels activates a spring to separate encapsulated components into inert 9 x 15 mm segments, facilitating intestinal passage. Separation triggers included closed-loop sensors and time-delay circuits. In vivo swine studies demonstrate the ability of our capsules to sense luminal oxygen changes via an optoelectronic sensor, locally trigger upadacitinib delivery, and facilitate safe excretion.

    @article{healy2026self, title = {Self-severing circuits facilitate passage of ingestible electronic sensor-guided therapeutics}, author = {Healy, Sean and Abdigazy, Angsagan and Clinch, McKenna and Chin, Jason Y. and Islam, Mohammad Shafiqul and Lee, Zachary and Ding, Julia Z. and Jackson, Joy and Ghanim, Ramy and Manigault, Xavier and others}, journal = {bioRxiv}, note = {Preprint}, year = {2026}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, doi = {10.64898/2026.03.27.714561}, thumbnail = {healy2026self.jpg}, url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.27.714561}, pdf = {healy2026self.pdf} }

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