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The potential of miniaturized ingestible electronics

Nature Electronics volume 9, pages 5–7 (2026)Cite this article

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Ingestible electronic devices could transform gastrointestinal medicine by combining diagnostic and therapeutic functions into a single miniature device. But challenges related to device miniaturization, power-efficient integrated circuit design and data security remain to be addressed.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the review and suggestions from S.-Y. Yang and Z. Kang, and J. Chen for providing a photo of the FIREFLI device. G.T., R.L. and A.C. report receiving funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under award no. D24AC00040-00. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Giovanni Traverso & Robert Langer

  2. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Giovanni Traverso

  3. Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Giovanni Traverso

  4. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Giovanni Traverso & Robert Langer

  5. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, Washington DC, USA

    Paul Sheehan

  6. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ahmad Bahai & Anantha Chandrakasan

  7. Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX, USA

    Ahmad Bahai

  8. Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Robert Langer

Authors
  1. Giovanni Traverso
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  2. Paul Sheehan
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  3. Ahmad Bahai
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  4. Robert Langer
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  5. Anantha Chandrakasan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giovanni Traverso.

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Competing interests

P.S. is a federal employee of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. A.B. is an employee of Texas Instruments, Inc. G.T., R.L. and A.C. report being co-inventors on multiple patents and patent applications encompassing aspects of ingestible electronic devices. Complete details of all relationships for profit and not-for-profit for G.T. and R.L. can be found in the Supplementary Information.

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Traverso, G., Sheehan, P., Bahai, A. et al. The potential of miniaturized ingestible electronics. Nat Electron 9, 5–7 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01561-5

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