This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2013
Design of bioelectronics interfaces
Design of bioelectronics interfaces
Optimization of methodologies toward engineering the life sciences and healthcare remains a grand challenge. In the field of neurotechnology tremendous progress has been made in fundamental knowledge of the nervous system and translation to build technology to diagnose and treat some neurological di...
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Personal Name(s): | Offenhäusser, Andreas (Corresponding author) |
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Contributing Institute: |
Bioelektronik; ICS-8 JARA-FIT; JARA-FIT Bioelektronik; PGI-8 |
Imprint: |
2013
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Conference: | ASBTE Conference, Barossa Valley (Australia), 2013-03-31 - 2013-04-05 |
Document Type: |
Conference Presentation |
Research Program: |
Physics of the Cell Sensorics and bioinspired systems |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Optimization of methodologies toward engineering the life sciences and healthcare remains a grand challenge. In the field of neurotechnology tremendous progress has been made in fundamental knowledge of the nervous system and translation to build technology to diagnose and treat some neurological diseases. However, two major limitations remain: our understanding of normal and diseased nervous system function and technological approaches to measuring and manipulating neuronal circuits.
Neural prosthetic devices are artificial extensions of body parts which allow a disabled individual to restore the body functions. Electrical interface using a neuroelectronic device is the key to restore the disabled body functions. Also, in vivo monitoring of the electrical signals from multiple cells as well as from multiple locations from a single cell during nerve excitation and cell-to-cell communication are important for design and development of novel materials and methods for laboratory analysis. In vitro biological applications such as drug screening and cell separation also require cell-based biosensors. The electrophysiological activity of certain cells such as neurons and cardiac cells are monitored using planar microelectrode arrays or field-effect transistors integrated with microfluidic devices. Of particular interest is the development of experimental models used to study neurodegenerative diseases that preserve the anatomical structures but greatly limit the experimentation at the cellular level, to dissociated cell culture systems that allow detailed manipulation of cell phenotype but lack the highly ordered and instructive brain environment.
Our efforts in this field are devoted to research and development of durable electronic devices for the efficient interfacing with neuronal cells. These Neuroelectronic hybrid systems will be important for basic neurobiological research, for high throughput pharmacological screenings, and future use in linking the brain and computers. Our research encompasses the following topics:
Sensitive electronic devices that can be fabricated using CMOS technology can provide direct, real–time monitoring of biological processes [1]. In addition, local electric fields generated by these devices can influence biological processes and interactions.
We develop and investigate novel chip-based interfaces for communication with cells and cellular networks. The envisaged interfaces will rely on nanofabrication technology and biomimetics that will add a new dimension to the development of neural biohybrid systems. This includes the development of 3D-electrode structure to improve the neuroelectronic [2]. Electrode design for successful interfacing requires a narrow seal and can be based on 3D geometry, which gets integrated into the cell like “stealth” probes [3]. On the other side we aim for building an artificial synapse by creating synthetic postsynaptic cell surfaces by self-assembling lipid bilayers onto inorganic materials [4]. This configuration preserves key properties of the cell membrane, such as lateral fluidity and incorporation of fully functional transmembrane proteins.
The combination of methods of micro-/nanotechnology with neuroscience will also help to advance our basic understanding of the nervous system and create novel applications based on neuroengineering principles. Here we construct and analyze neural networks to unravel principals of information processing. Our approach is to reduce the network complexity and control the network architecture and finally the signal propagation in networks. This includes micro- and nanopatterning techniques to construct geometrically defined networks and electrophysiological measurements to analyze them [5 ,6]. One mayor goal is to explore the cellular and molecular mechanism of neuronal polarity and implement key signals into strategies for directing axo- and synaptogenesis [7].
[1] JF Eschermann, R Stockmann, M. Hüske, XT. Vu, S. Ingebrandt, A. Offenhäusser Applied Physics Letters, 95 (2009) 8, 083703
[2] B. Hofmann, E. Kätelhön, M. Schottdorf, A. Offenhäusser, B. Wolfrum Lab on a Chip, 11 (2011), 1054-1058
[3] G. Panaitov, S. Thiery, B. Hofmann, A. Offenhäusser Microelectronic Engineering, 88 (8) (2011) 1840-1844
[4] D. Afanasenkau, A. Offenhäusser Langmuir 28 (2012) 4, 13387-13394
[5] A. Offenhäusser, S. Böcker-Meffert, T. Decker, R. Helpenstein, P. Gasteier, J. Groll, M. Möller, A. Reska, S. Schäfer, P. Schulte, A. Vogt-Eisele, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 290 – 298
[6] S. Gilles, S. Winter, K. E. Michael, S. H. Meffert, P. Li, K. Greben, U. Simon, A. Offenhäusser, D. Mayer Small, 8 (2012) 21, 3357-3367
[7] R. Fricke, P. Zentis, L. Rajappa, B. Hofmann, M. Banzet, A. Offenhäusser, S. H. Meffert, Biomaterials, 2011, 32, 2070 – 2076 |