About

Philipp Gutruf is an associate professor and the associate department head in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona. He is also a Craig M. Berge Faculty Fellow. His educational background includes a PhD from RMIT University in Australia, completed in 2016, and postdoctoral training in the John A. Rogers Research Group at Northwestern University. His research focuses on creating devices that intimately integrate with biological systems by combining innovations in soft materials, photonics, and electronics. These systems aim to have broad impacts on health diagnostics, therapeutics, and exploratory neuroscience. Gutruf has authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, received four patents, and his work has been highlighted on eight journal covers. His contributions include developing wireless, battery-free, fully implantable devices for neural stimulation, biosignal monitoring, and long-range bioelectronic applications, advancing the field of biomedical devices for health and neuroscience.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Psychology
• Telecommunications
• Artificial Intelligence
• Neuroscience
• Nanotechnology
• Physics
• Embedded system
• Engineering management
• Electrical engineering
• Medicine
• Mathematics education
• Pedagogy
• Biomedical engineering
• Materials science

Selected publications

• A battery-free wireless epidermal sensor network for continuous systolic blood pressure monitoring

  Nature Electronics · 2026-04-10

  article
  PublisherDOI

• PO-04-209 LOCALIZED PHOTOPHARMACOLOGY USING A WIRELESS CARDIAC IMPLANT TO MODULATE CARDIAC ELECTRICAL FUNCTION VIA PHOTOACTIVATABLE PEPTIDES

  Heart Rhythm · 2026-04-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Nano-enabled Living Materials and Living Electronics: A Roadmap for Innovation and Impact

  Nano Futures · 2026-03-30

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Nano-enabled living materials and living electronics represent the next frontier in integrating biology with advanced nanotechnology, offering unprecedented opportunities to design systems with programmable, adaptive, and multifunctional capabilities. By combining living cells or tissues with engineered nanostructures, living materials and electronics create platforms for bi-directional communication, sensing, and actuation. These advancements hold immense potential for applications in healthcare, energy systems, and environmental sustainability. This roadmap provides a comprehensive vision for advancing this transformative field, addressing scientific challenges, technological pathways, and long-term goals for deploying these hybrid systems at scale.

  PublisherDOI

• Wearable continuous diffusion-based skin gas analysis

  Nature Communications · 2025-05-09 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Biophysical signals such as motion and optically acquired hemodynamics represent foundational sensing modalities for wearables. Expansion of this toolset is vital for the progression of digital medicine. Current efforts utilize biofluids such as sweat and interstitial fluid with primarily adhesively mounted sensors that are fundamentally limited by epidermal turnover. A class of potential biomarkers that is largely unexplored are gaseous emissions from the body. In this work, we introduce an approach to capture emission of gas from the skin with a leaky cavity designed to allow for diffusion-based ambient gas exchange with the environment. This approach, coupled with differential measurement of ambient and in-cavity gas concentrations, allows for the real-time analysis of sweat rate, VOCs, and CO2 while performing everyday tasks. The resulting biosignals are recorded with temporal resolutions that exceed current methodology, providing unparalleled insight into physiological processes without requiring sensor replacement over weeks at a time. Acquiring biomarkers from blood or sweat is limited by invasiveness or biofouling. Skin gas emissions bypass these issues, offering rich biosignals. Authors present passive sensing strategies capturing water vapor (Sweat rate), CO2, and VOCs, enabling real-time tracking of physiological changes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Continuous biosignal acquisition beyond the limit of epidermal turnover

  Materials Horizons · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Acquisition of biosignals is particularly valuable if uninterrupted data streams are collected over weeks or months without gaps. This is currently only possible with devices that feature long battery life and interfaces such as belts and straps that result in substantial limitations for signal fidelity, sensor location, wear comfort and user retention. State of the art patch-type wearables provide advanced sensing modalities, however, they require adhesives that need to frequently be replaced because of epidermal turnover and pose related limits for chronic operation. This review explores the value of chronic data streams to diagnostics and therapeutics with a detailed dissection of current sensors for chronic applications, system level architectures, sensing modalities and electronic concepts that enable continuous 24/7 high-fidelity insight into physiology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Chronic, Battery‐Free, Fully Implantable Multimodal Spinal Cord Stimulator for Pain Modulation in Small Animal Models

  Advanced Science · 2025-04-04 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for chronic pain management is an invasive therapy involving surgical implantation of electrodes into spinal epidural space. While the clinical value and mechanistic action of the therapy is debated considerably in recent years, preclinical chronic studies employing rodent models can provide invaluable insights regarding the balance between efficacy and complications as well as mechanistic understanding of SCS therapy. However, current rodent compatible devices require tethered power delivery or bulky batteries, severely limiting the ability to probe long-term efficacy of SCS therapy. This work introduces a tether-free, small-footprint, fully implantable, battery-free SCS device compatible with rodent models, capable of delivering electrical stimulation to the spinal cord at a wide range of frequency, amplitude, and period via wireless communication adjustable on-demand without direct interaction with the animal. The presented device features capabilities of clinical SCS devices, with materials and processes amendable to scalable fabrication at a cost suitable for one-time use enabling high N studies. In this proof of concept, the implantable device serves to assess therapeutic efficacy of various clinically relevant SCS paradigms in alleviating neuropathic pain. This technology offers chronic stability and the potential to serve as the foundation for future research into the development of SCS therapeutic systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Continuous operation of battery-free implants enables advanced fracture recovery monitoring

  Science Advances · 2025-05-09 · 17 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Substantial hurdles in achieving a digitally connected body with seamless, chronic, high-fidelity organ interfaces include challenges of sourcing energy and ensuring reliable connectivity. Operation is currently limited by batteries that occupy large volumes. Wireless, battery-free operation is therefore paramount, requiring a system-level solution that enables seamless connection of wearable and implantable devices. Here, we present a technological framework that enables wireless, battery-free implant operation in freely moving subjects, with streaming of high-fidelity information from low-displacement, battery-free implants with little user interaction. This is accomplished using at-distance wirelessly recharged, wearable biosymbiotic devices for powering and communication with fully implantable NFC-enabled implants. We demonstrate this capability with osseosurface electronics that stream bone health insight. Eleven-month-long large animal studies highlight the ability of implants to relay information on bone health without negative impact on the subjects. Clinical translatability is shown through fracture healing studies that demonstrate biomarkers of bone union.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Continuous biosignal acquisition beyond the limit of epidermal turnover"

  2025-06-30

  peer-reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Wearable AI for on-device frailty assessment

  Nature Communications · 2025-12-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Continuously operating wearables offer detailed insight into chronic health conditions and have the potential to reshape diagnostic and screening tools. However, the energy demands and large datasets created by constant monitoring over weeks to months are difficult or impossible to integrate into existing clinical practice, limiting the utility of this device class. Machine learning offers the opportunity to condense these large datasets into streamlined, digestible trends with the potential for significant clinical impact, although off-device inference requires advanced network infrastructure and substantial power availability for radios. Here, we introduce a device framework that integrates artificial intelligence with clinical grade biosignal acquisition at the edge, performing on-device inference with clinical grade fidelity over extended durations with no interaction required by the wearer. We utilize this framework to perform gait-based frailty assessment during in vivo trials (N1 = 16) with results that match gold standard diagnostic tools. Clinical utility, model stability, and on-device inference are validated through in vivo trials (N2 = 14) and ten-day-long extended wear experiments, demonstrating continuous operation without wearer intervention and autonomous longitudinal analysis of high sampling rate biosignals. Energy demand and intensive computation limit the use of machine learning on-device for wearables. Here, the authors deploy edge AI in a wearable form factor to provide clinical-grade gait-based frailty assessment over weeks with no interaction required from the wearer at any point.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biosymbiotic haptic feedback - Sustained long term human machine interfaces

  Biosensors and Bioelectronics · 2024-06-01 · 9 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John A. Rogers

  78 shared

• John A. Rogers

  Northwestern University

  34 shared

• Sharath Sriram

  RMIT University

  31 shared

• Madhu Bhaskaran

  30 shared

• Yonggang Huang

  Northwestern University

  24 shared

• Zhaoqian Xie

  24 shared

• Jeonghyun Kim

  Yonsei University

  22 shared

• Withawat Withayachumnankul

  University of Adelaide

  19 shared

Labs

• Gutruf LabPI

Awards & honors

• International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS)
• Australian Nano Technology Network Travel Fellowship