在过去的十年中，材料设计的新功能不断涌现。现在已经集成了包括自下而上化学和自上而下的微加工在内的生产过程，使生物医学工程师对聚合物，陶瓷，金属和半导体的分子和纳米级结构有了新的控制水平。结果，运用于人体的生物材料不再仅仅是机械功能，它们越来越具有多功能性，可以按需提供药物，用于神经替代的电导率以及用于视网膜和光遗传学应用的光学活性。这些功能还被用于高度复杂的传感器的小型化，这些传感器既可以在体内进行实时诊断，也可以在体外进行血液或其他流体分析。新一代医疗设备技术适用于一系列临床学科，包括全球健康，急诊医学
The past decade has seen an explosion of new capabilities in materials design. Production processes including bottoms-up chemistry and top-down micromachining have now been integrated, giving biomedical engineers a new level of control over the molecular and nanometer scale structure of polymers, ceramics, metals and semiconductors. As a result, biomaterials destined for the human body are no longer just mechanical in function, they are increasingly multi-functional offering delivery of drugs on command, electrical conductivity for nerve replacement, and optical activity designed for retinal and optogenetic applications. These features also are exploited in the miniaturization of highly complex sensors usable both in-vivo for real-time diagnostics as well as ex-vivo for blood or other fluid analysis. This new generation of medical device technologies are applicable to a range of clinical disciplines including global health, emergency medicine, infectious disease, surgery, cardiovascular research, pathobiology, neurology and orthopedics. With concurrent advances in data science, these new biomaterials and sensors will fundamentally alter modern health care.