WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Rupak Kumar* and Srinivasa R. Vulichi

ABSTRACT

The Six-Million-Dollar Man, a popular series of television motion pictures in which the character of Lee Major as test pilot whose airplane crashed, in turn resulting in loss of both the legs, an arm, and an eye. Major’s character was rebuilt by a skilled physician using advanced biomedical body parts made up of smart materials at a cost of six million dollars as the bionic man (hence the name). This science fiction gave an insight into designing synthetic biological materials and body parts which can respond to the stimulus. Smart materials can respond to external stimuli through their physical, chemical, electrical, magnetic and optical properties. This extraordinary ability of the structures or structural components of materials perform design function. There are multitudes of examples of smart materials that are used in and around us. One of the promising biomedical applications includes design of point of care (POC) device to screen a large population against many non- communicable or communicable diseases. Others applications of smart materials are described in this review.