A wirelessly powered, nanoscale bioelectronic system with targeted localization at cellular and subcellular resolutions

• Applicant: Professorin Kristen Kozielski, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Biomaterials ; Biomedical Systems Technology ; Synthesis and Properties of Functional Materials
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 568124678

Neural devices can be implanted into the brain or spinal cord and allow us to then control or communicate with the nervous system. As an example, recent neural devices have helped patients with spinal cord injury to walk again. Most neural devices have centimeter-scale dimensions, require surgical implantation, and are wired through and out of the brain. This makes implantation invasive, risks infection or tissue damage, and thus limits use to patients with severe symptoms. Instead, our group makes neural devices that are nanoscale, injectable, and wireless. The nanoparticle bioelectronics, or "nanoelectrodes", are implantable via injection, and are thus easier to embed and less invasive than wired microelectrode systems. By lowering invasiveness and implantation risk, this technology could address the unmet medical needs of more people with neurological impairments. The potential of this technology extends beyond lowered invasiveness, however, as the use of nanoelectrodes provides a critical advantage only possible with these small and wireless devices. At the nanoscale, implanted particles can diffuse through tissue in a manner that is tunable via the surface chemistry of the particles, and cell-targeting moieties on nanoparticle surfaces can localize nanoparticles to specific cell targets. While this technique is well-established in the fields of nanomedicine and drug delivery, it has heretofore been irrelevant to bioelectronics, due to their supra-cellular dimensions. The nanoelectrodes developed by our group are among the first of few examples of nanoscale bioelectronics, and thus have the potential to behave in a cell-selective manner in providing electrical stimulation. Herein, we propose to use surface modification techniques to localize the nanoelectrodes to cellular and subcellular targets, thus generating a cell-specific bioelectronic device. The proposed work will impact the field of bioelectronic medicine by creating a selective, injectable, and minimally invasive neural stimulator designed to avoid negative off-target effects. This technology has the potential to be translated to various neurological, inflammatory, and oncological disorders, and therefore represents a crucial step in the development of next-generation wireless bioelectronics. This research will pave the way for safer, more effective, and less invasive neuromodulation therapies, ultimately improving the quality of life for patients with debilitating conditions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants