Internet has created several waves in recent years. From email, eBook, eBay, eCitizen to iGoogle, iPhone, iTunes, and iPad. These cool gadgets change our lifestyle, connect us to people, and make information more accessible. What will be the next wave? Picture this: You are fully equipped with smart wireless sensors which will continuously capture vital parameters from your body and sending the data to your smart phone which will then relay the data to a diagnosis centre where doctors with the help of computer programmes, can identify early signs of potential disease. If any abnormalities are discovered, the doctor will alert you to visit the clinic. This is the scenario for future healthcare, where prevention is the norm rather than waiting till symptoms appear. In many unfortunate instances, there may not even be symptoms. Take for example, cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death globally which is projected to cause 23.6 million deaths worldwide every year by 2030. By building a Body Sensor Network around or inside a human body, wireless health facilitates continuous monitoring by providing more information about a person.s health than isolated snapshots obtained when visiting the hospital or clinic. Wireless health is envisaged to revolutionise the healthcare system to meet our future health needs. In this lecture, Professor Lian will draw up on previous works and on-going studies at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering of NUS to reveal novel circuit and signal processing techniques that can help shape future healthcare.

Biography

Yong LIAN received the PhD degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of NUS in 1994. He worked in industry for 10 years and joined NUS in 1996. Currently, he is a Provost.s Chair Professor and Area Director of Integrated Circuits and Embedded Systems in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, NUS. His research interests include low power circuit techniques, computationally efficient signal processing techniques, and wireless miniaturised biomedical devices. Dr. Lian is the recipient of the 1996 IEEE CAS Society's Guillemin-Cauer Award for the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, the 2008 Multimedia Communications Best Paper Award from the IEEE Communications Society for the paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and many other awards. He is also a recipient of the 2009 and 2010 NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Awards. Dr. Lian is the Founder of ClearBridge VitalSigns Pte Ltd, a start-up for wireless wearable biomedical devices. Dr. Lian is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, Steering Committee Member of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems (BioCAS), Chair of DSP Technical Committee of the IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society. He was the Vice President for Asia Pacific Region of the IEEE CAS Society from 2007 to 2008, Chair of the BioCAS Technical Committee of the IEEE CAS Society (2007-2009), the Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE CAS Society (2004-2005). Dr. Lian is a Fellow of IEEE.