Tag Archives: matt hepler

Engineering Bacterial Live Wires

Berkeley Lab scientists discover the balance that allows electricity to flow between cells and electronics

Just like electronics, living cells use electrons for energy and information transfer. Despite electrons being a common “language” of the living and electronic worlds, living cells cannot speak to our largely technological realm. Cell membranes are largely to blame for this inability to plug cells into our computers: they form a greasy barrier that tightly controls charge balance in a cell.  Thus, giving a cell the ability to communicate directly with an electrode would lead to enormous opportunities in the development of new energy conversion techniques, fuel production, biological reporters, or new forms of bioelectronic systems. (more…)

Read More