Ingestible Osmotic Pill for In-vivo Sampling of Gut Microbiome

Technologies capable of non-invasively sampling internal organs are potentially transformative for healthcare. We present an ingestible, biocompatible, battery-less, 3D-printed micro-engineered pill with integrated osmotic sampler and microfluidic channels for in vivo sampling of the gut lumen and its microbiome. An embedded magnet enables spatial sampling from a specific region of the gut. The pill's sampling performance was characterized using realistic in vitro models and validated in vivo in a pig model. Our results show that the bacterial populations recovered from the pills' microfluidic channels closely resemble the bacterial population demographics of the microenvironment from which they were recovered. We believe such lab-on-a-pill devices will revolutionize our understanding of the spatial diversity of the gut microbiome and its response to medical conditions.