ASM Rocky Mountain
ASM Rocky Mountain Chapter 2007-2008 Meetings
5/1/08 - Dr. Stephanie Hooker
“Materials Reliability at the Nano-Bio Interface”
Implantable medical devices represent a significant sector of the U.S. healthcare industry, with annual sales exceeding $13 billion. Clinicians predict that these devices will be increasingly used as the population ages and medical advances continue. Achieving this goal will require unprecedented advances in materials science, device miniaturization, smart technology, and reliability testing. To accurately predict reliability, one must understand the environment a product will be used, design ways to accelerate failure of that product (at all levels) in the laboratory, and develop models to link the real world to the laboratory to predict performance in use. At present, very little is known about how materials behave in the body, especially given the rapid incorporation of ultra-thin films, polymers, MEMS devices, and nanoparticles in medical technology. Virtually all devices are now comprised of dissimilar materials, minimal protective housings, and complex electronics, each of which presents challenges for failure testing. This talk will discuss the role that conventional materials reliability testing (make it and break it) will play in helping advance future medical devices, with particular emphasis on the interface (literally) between nanotechnology and bioscience.
Biography:
Dr. Stephanie Hooker is the Chief of the Materials Reliability Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO, where she pursues novel ways to measure and predict materials reliability, from gas pipelines to nanoelectronics to live cells and tissues. From 1998-2002, Dr. Hooker served as Business Development Manager for a Colorado-based nanotech start-up, Nanomaterials Research, LLC, where she helped launch several new products incorporating ceramic nanopowders. Her research with increasingly smaller materials and devices began at NASA-Langley Research Center, where she worked on the next generation of infrared detectors and actuated optics, using high-temperature superconductors and ferroelectrics to dramatically shrink the size of their support electronics. Dr. Hooker holds Ph.D. and B.S. degrees in Ceramic Engineering from Clemson University and has 30+ publications and 2 patents.
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