IEEE Spectrum’s Top Biomedical Stories of 2025

IEEE SpectrumThe most popular biomedical stories of the past year focused on both the incorporation of new technologies and the renewal of old ones. While AI is trending in most sectors (including biomedical, with applications such as a brain alert system for worsening mental health and a model to estimate heart rate in real time), last year’s biomedical news also focused on legacy technologies. technology such as Wi-Fi, ultrasound and lasers have returned or found new uses in 2025.

Whether innovation comes from new or old technologies, IEEE Spectrum will continue to cover it rigorously in 2026.

Georgia Institute of Technology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and TeraPixel

When Patricio Riva Possepsychiatrist at Emory University School of Medicine, noticed that her patient’s brain implants were sending her signals about her worsening depression before she realized something was wrong, she wished she had taken action sooner.

That experience led him and his colleagues to develop “an automatic alarm system” to detect signs of changes in mental health. The tool monitors brain signals in real time, using implants to record electrical impulses and artificial intelligence to analyze the outputs and flag warning signs of relapse. Other research groups across the United States are experimenting with different ways to use these stimulating brain implants to help treat depression, with and without the help of AI. “There are so many levers we can press here,” neurosurgeon Nir Lipsman it says in the article.

Dmitry Kireev/University of Massachusetts Amherst

In Dmitri Kireev‘s laboratory At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, researchers are developing imperceptibly thin graphene tattoos capable of monitoring your vital signs and more. “Electronic tattoos could help people track complex medical conditions, including cardiovascular, metabolic, immune system and neurodegenerative diseases. almost half of American adults may be in the early stages of one or more of these disorders right now, although they don’t know it yet,” he wrote in an article for IEEE Spectrum.

How does it work? Graphene is conductive, strong and flexible, capable of measuring characteristics such as heart rate and the presence of certain compounds in sweat. For now, the tattoos must be connected to a normal electronic circuit, but Kireev hopes that they will soon be integrated into smart watches and therefore easier to wear.

Erika Cardema/UC Santa Cruz

Wi-Fi can do more than just connect you to the Internet: it can help you monitor your heart inexpensively and without the need for constant physical contact. The new approach, called Pulse-Fi, uses an artificial intelligence model to analyze heartbeats and estimate heart rate in real time from up to 10 feet away.

The system is low-cost, costing around US$40, easy to implement and hassle-free. It also works regardless of the user’s posture and in all types of environments. Katia Obraczkaa computer scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who led the development of Pulse-Fi, says the team plans to commercialize the technology.

Shonagh Rae

Sangeeta S. Chavan and Stavros Zanosbiomedical researchers Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine in New York, hypothesize that ultrasound waves can activate neurons, offering “a precise and safe way to provide curative treatments for a wide range of acute and chronic diseases,” as they write in an article for Spectrum. According to them, targeted ultrasound could serve as a treatment for inflammation or diabetes, instead of drugs with extensive side effects.

It works by vibrating the membrane of a neuron and “opening channels that allow ions to flow into the cell, thereby indirectly changing the cell’s voltage and causing it to fire,” they write. The authors believe that activating specific neurons can help address the root causes of specific diseases.

Extreme Light Group/University of Glasgow

If a doctor wants to see inside your head, they have to decide whether they want to do it cheaply or deeply: an EEG is cheap, but doesn’t penetrate beyond the outer layers of the brain, while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is expensive, but can see deep. Passing a laser through a person’s head appears to be the first step toward a technology that does both.

For many years, this type of work seemed impossible because the human head is so good at blocking light, but researchers have now shown that lasers can send photons through it. “What was thought impossible, we have shown is possible. And hopefully… that could inspire the next generation of these devices,” said the project leader. Jack Radford it says in the article.

Jiawei Ge

In the not-too-distant future, surgical patients might hear, “The robot will see you now,” as the authors of this story suggest. All three researchers work at Johns Hopkins University. robotics laboratory responsible for developing Autonomous smart fabric robot (STAR), which performed the first autonomous soft tissue surgery in a living animal in 2016.

While there are still challenges to be resolved in the quest to bring autonomous robots to the operating room (such as developing general-purpose robotic controllers and collecting data within strict privacy regulations), the ultimate goal is on the horizon. “A scenario in which patients are routinely greeted by a surgeon and an autonomous robotic assistant is no longer a distant possibility,” the authors write.