Let’s introduce Dr. Anna-Maria Pappa to our audience! Who are you? If you had to describe yourself in 1 sentence, what would you say?

I'm a chemical engineer turned biomedical engineer, leading a group at Khalifa University exploring the intersection of living and non-living systems towards adaptive and bioinspired biodevices.

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What are the most

A- Fascinating research

B- Impactful research

C- Fun and whimsical research

You are leading these days?

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Fascinating research: It is our cyber T-shirt that continuously and wirelessly measures the wearer’s vitals with medical-grade precision and higher sensitivity compared to commercial medical setups. We are now in the process of testing our technology on human volunteers. It is truly fascinating to see research transform into a product that can be used in practice!

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Impactful research: We are redesigning and simplifying biosensors and diagnostic kits to make them affordable, sustainable, and suitable for extreme environments and low-resource settings. For example, instead of traditional hard, expensive metal- and silicon-based electronics, we use materials fabricated and processed through sustainable methods, ensuring environmentally friendly sensor production. Additionally, we aim to replace or minimize biological reagents by using materials that mimic biomolecule functions. This approach results in sensors that are more stable, easier to store, and more accessible for low-income countries and extreme environments.

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Fun and whimsical research: We recreate our own cell membranes on electronic chips! This allows us to rapidly test critical interactions at the very first point of contact—the cell membrane—using electrical signals. Imagine a quick test that can determine, from the comfort of your home, whether a new virus or variant can interact with and infect your cells. It might sound like science fiction, but we’ve already demonstrated that this technology works using standard cell lines.

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Tech that heals itself?! Did your team really create an injectable material that repairs itself and conducts electricity?

We are developing hydrogels made entirely from natural components, making them safe for ingestion or implantation in the body. Their strong adhesive properties also allow them to be worn on the skin. As excellent ionic conductors, they can communicate with the body’s signals and record electrophysiological data with sensitivity comparable to medical-grade devices.

Unlike conventional electrodes, our hydrogels are soft and conform to the skin, ensuring natural body movements do not distort the signal. They can also self-repair if torn or cracked—melting at specific temperatures and reshaping easily at room temperature. This thermoreversibility makes them highly adaptable for various therapeutic applications.

Additionally, these hydrogels can be enhanced with electronic conductors to become electrically active, or mixed with natural materials like cabbage to change color based on pH levels, showcasing their versatility.

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A fingertip for cells! You’re detecting how drugs affect cells…by touch alone?

Not exactly. What we can do now is detect how drugs affect our cells at their very first point of contact—the cell membrane. We achieve this by recreating the actual membrane of cells, as if we’ve ‘cut and pasted’ it, onto our bioelectronic microchips. By adding different drugs, we record the signals generated by our device to understand their impact.

Having already validated this technology using standard cell lines, our next step is to move to human samples, which could pave the way for personalized diagnostic tests. Additionally, since this method does not require whole cells or the associated sterility challenges, it is much easier to scale up. This increases throughput (the number of tests) significantly, making it a valuable tool for streamlining the long and costly drug discovery process.

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AI…AI…AI…is AI doing anything useful in your field of biomedical engineering?

AI and machine learning are shaping healthcare these days. For example, it’s pretty well-known now that AI can spot or diagnose cancer from biopsy images even better than doctors. This makes sense when you think about it, as AI gets trained on way more images than any one doctor could ever see in a lifetime! In biosensors and bioelectronics field, take the Whoop bracelet, as another example. It uses AI to give you insights about your overall health and even longevity, based on things like your heart rate, sleep, steps, and the lifestyle info you add every day.The big goal now is to combine all that with real-time sensors that track the so called “traditional biomarkers” such as hormones, electrolytes, and metabolites. That way, you get a full picture of your health, not just bits and pieces.

And AI doctors? They’re starting to be a real thing too. ChatGPT and other LLMs can help people out anytime, whether you’re at home or stuck somewhere without easy access to a doctor. It’s like having a health assistant right in your pocket.

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If you could design an experiment without any limitations of time or money…what would it be?

If I had unlimited time and money, I’d design an experiment to map and decode the entire human brain’s neural activity in real time creating a full “brain-to-computer” interface that could instantly translate thoughts into actions or communications. This could enhance learning, or even connect minds directly! It sounds like science fiction, but with today’s advances in bioelectronics, AI, and imaging, it seems to be the next frontier.

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If you could have a superhero power. What would it be?

Following up from my previous answer, I would choose to read people’s minds!

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Mystery dinner party…Dead or Alive, who would be 3 guests you would invite to your dinner party?

I would invite three biomedical science pioneers from completely different eras: Hippocrates, Marie Curie, and Katalin Karikó. Hippocrates to bring the wisdom of ancient medicine and its foundations, Marie Curie with her groundbreaking work on radioactivity and its medical applications breaking gender barriers in science and Katalin Karikó representing modern biomedical science and her revolutionary work on mRNA technology. It would be fascinating to observe their perspectives and conversations about how medicine has evolved over centuries and the challenges and opportunities each one faced at the given period of time.

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Question to you from our previous guest Dr. Bas Rokers (Professor of Psychology at NYU Abu Dhabi) : “Beyond the specific discoveries in your field, what is the most profound or unexpected way your research has changed how you view the world or your place in it?"

My research has changed how I see the world by showing me how deeply everything is interconnected. Studying the interface between the biotic and abiotic (man-made) world has taught me that the same principles, for example adaptability and resilience, can apply to both living and non-living systems. This has made me realize that I’m not just an observer of the world but an active part of a much bigger web of interactions.