Credit: David Martin
A press conference on this topic will be held Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 10 a.m. Eastern time online at http://www.acs.org/fall2020pressconferences.
Although true “cyborgs” — part human, part robotic beings — are science fiction, researchers are taking steps toward integrating electronics with the body. Such devices could monitor for tumor development or stand in for damaged tissues. But connecting electronics directly to human tissues in the body is a huge challenge. Now, a team is reporting new coatings for components that could help them more easily fit into this environment.
The researchers will present their results today at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting & Expo. ACS is holding the meeting through Thursday. It features more than 6,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.
“We got the idea for this project because we were trying to interface rigid, inorganic microelectrodes with the brain, but brains are made out of organic, salty, live materials,” says David Martin, Ph.D., who led the study. “It wasn’t working well, so we thought there must be a better way.”
Traditional microelectronic materials, such as silicon, gold, stainless steel and iridium, cause scarring when implanted. For applications in muscle or brain tissue, electrical signals need to flow for them to operate properly, but scars interrupt this activity. The researchers reasoned that a coating could help.
“We started looking at organic electronic materials like conjugated polymers that were being used in non-biological devices,” says Martin, who is at the University of Delaware. “We found a chemically stable example that was sold commercially as an antistatic coating for electronic displays.” After testing, the researchers found that the polymer had the properties necessary for interfacing hardware and human tissue.
“These conjugated polymers are electrically active, but they are also ionically active,” Martin says. “Counter ions give them the charge they need so when they are in operation, both electrons and ions are moving around.” The polymer, known as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) or PEDOT, dramatically improved the performance of medical implants by lowering their impedance two to three orders of magnitude, thus increasing signal quality and battery lifetime in patients.
Martin has since determined how to specialize the polymer, putting different functional groups on PEDOT. Adding a carboxylic acid, aldehyde or maleimide substituent to the ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) monomer gives the researchers the versatility to create polymers with a variety of functions.
“The maleimide is particularly powerful because we can do click chemistry substitutions to make functionalized polymers and biopolymers,” Martin says. Mixing unsubstituted monomer with the maleimide-substituted version results in a material with many locations where the team can attach peptides, antibodies or DNA. “Name your favorite biomolecule, and you can in principle make a PEDOT film that has whatever biofunctional group you might be interested in,” he says.
Most recently, Martin’s group created a PEDOT film with an antibody for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) attached. VEGF stimulates blood vessel growth after injury, and tumors hijack this protein to increase their blood supply. The polymer that the team developed could act as a sensor to detect overexpression of VEGF and thus early stages of disease, among other potential applications.
Other functionalized polymers have neurotransmitters on them, and these films could help sense or treat brain or nervous system disorders. So far, the team has made a polymer with dopamine, which plays a role in addictive behaviors, as well as dopamine-functionalized variants of the EDOT monomer. Martin says these biological-synthetic hybrid materials might someday be useful in merging artificial intelligence with the human brain.
Ultimately, Martin says, his dream is to be able to tailor how these materials deposit on a surface and then to put them in tissue in a living organism. “The ability to do the polymerization in a controlled way inside a living organism would be fascinating.”
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Interfacing hardware and human tissue
- Q1 2024 Intuitive Surgical Inc Earnings Call
Thank you, everyone, for standing by, and welcome to the Intuitive Q1 2024 Earnings Release Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over ...
- Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
The headline numbers for Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) give insight into how the company performed in the quarter ended March 2024, but it may be worthwhile to compare some of its key metrics to Wall ...
- Intuitive Surgical Earnings Transcript (NASDAQ:ISRG)
Presentation Operator Thank you, everyone, for standing by, and welcome to the Intuitive Q1 2024 Earnings Release Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to our host, Head of ...
- OPINION: What is a brain-computer interface, and will you eventually have one?
Once material for dystopian novels, the brain-computer interface world is now a possible reality that could be here sooner than expected. Companies have been making large strides with spearheads like ...
- Team replicates an adult human ear using tissue engineering, 3D printing
The sterilized cartilage was placed on ear-shaped plastic scaffolds created on a 3D printer, featuring the dimensions and curves of the person’s ear. The researchers explained that the small pieces of ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Interfacing hardware and human tissue
[google_news title=”” keyword=”interfacing hardware and human tissue” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Biological-synthetic hybrid materials
- Advances in adaptive, intelligent life-inspired materials
General concepts in approaching life-inspired materials from synthetic and biological perspectives ... The authors envision the development of hybrid materials that incorporate living cells or dormant ...
- Harnessing the Power of Microalgae-Material Hybrids Paving the Way to Carbon Neutrality
In the quest for sustainable solutions to mitigate climate change and achieve carbon neutrality, researchers are turning to nature’s biological systems for inspiration. Among these systems, microalgae ...
- A microalgae–material hybrid promotes carbon neutrality
Microalgae, including cyanobacteria and green algae, represent the most important biological systems for ... the artificial cell-material hybrid has received increasing interest in green chemistry ...
- Physical Gels from Biological and Synthetic Polymers
Simon B. Ross-Murphy, University of Manchester Simon B. Ross-Murphy is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester (Materials Science) and the University of Nottingham (Biopolymer ...
- Precision medicine advances where disciplines meet
Zhang and colleagues are preparing a bioresponsive polymer-graphene hybrid system. While they employ AI and synthetic biological skills to design and synthesize advanced materials, the preparation ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Biological-synthetic hybrid materials
[google_news title=”” keyword=”biological-synthetic hybrid materials” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]