Seamless Bio Electronic Devices
Life has always played by its own set of molecular rules. From the biochemistry behind the first cells, evolution has constructed wonders like hard bone, rough bark and plant enzymes that harvest light to make food.
But our tools for manipulating life, to treat disease, repair damaged tissue and replace lost limbs, come from the nonliving realm: metals, plastics and the like.
Though these save and preserve lives, our synthetic treatments are rooted in a chemical language ill-suited to our organic elegance. Implanted electrodes scar, wires overheat and our bodies struggle against ill-fitting pumps, pipes or valves.
A solution lies in bridging this gap where artificial meets biological, harnessing biological rules to exchange information between the biochemistry of our bodies and the chemistry of our devices. In a paper published in Scientific Reports, engineers at the University of Washington (UW) unveiled peptides, small proteins which carry out countless essential tasks in our cells, that can provide just such a link.
The team, led by Professor Mehmet Sarikaya in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering, shows how a genetically engineered peptide can assemble into nanowires atop 2-D, solid surfaces that are just a single layer of atoms thick.
These nanowire assemblages are critical because the peptides relay information across the bio/nano interface through molecular recognition, the same principles that underlie biochemical interactions such as an antibody binding to its specific antigen or protein binding to DNA.
Since this communication is two-way, with peptides understanding the “language” of technology and vice versa, their approach essentially enables a coherent bio-electronic interface.
“Bridging this divide would be the key to building the genetically engineered biomolecular solid-state devices of the future,” said Sarikaya, who is also a professor of chemical engineering and oral health sciences.
To Sarikaya, the biochemical “language” of life is a logical emulation. “Nature must constantly make materials to do many of the same tasks we seek,” he said.
The UW team wants to find genetically engineered peptides with specific chemical and structural properties. They sought out a peptide that could interact with materials such as gold, titanium and even a mineral in bone and teeth. These could all form the basis of future biomedical and electro-optical devices.
Their ideal peptide should also change the physical properties of synthetic materials and respond to that change. That way, it would transmit “information” from the synthetic material to other biomolecules, bridging the chemical divide between biology and technology.
In exploring the properties of 80 genetically selected peptides, which are not found in nature but have the same chemical components of all proteins, they discovered that one showed promising interactions with the semimetal graphene. Sarikaya said, “These could serve as the metals or semiconductors of the future.”
“In a way, we’re at the flood gates,” said Sarikaya. “Now we need to explore the basic properties of this bridge and how we can modify it to permit the flow of ‘information’ from electronic and photonic devices to biological systems.”
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