Peering into the future of bioelectronic medicine

Medical researchers are increasingly working to develop novel therapeutics and drug delivery methods using bioelectronics. These goals can be aided by advanced materials called bionanohybrids, which incorporate both nanomaterials and biomaterials.

Yoon et al. lay out recent advances in bioelectronic devices with bionanohybrids. These hybrid materials are expected to play a significant role in products such as biomedical devices and biohybrid robots.

“In recent years, bionanohybrids have shown great potential for broad scientific applications including biomedical and biohybrid robotic applications,” said author Jinho Yoon. “Thus, this review article is expected to provide interdisciplinary knowledge in bionanohybrid-based bioelectronics to researchers in many disciplines.”

The researchers discuss recent studies on bionanohybrid bioelectronic devices and detail different types of nanomaterials. They examine the devices’ applications with nucleic acids, proteins, and cells. The team also provides a forward-looking perspective on biocomputers.

But before bionanohybrids can make these advances, biomaterial limitations need to be overcome. These limitations, which include low stability, narrowness of extension of functionality, and low signal-to-noise ratio, limit their use on biochips. Nanomaterials could help overcome these limitations by amplifying electrical and electrochemical signals and improving biomolecular stability. They also offer large surface area-to-volume ratios and easy functional tunability.

“We hope to motivate researchers across a range of disciplines, inspiring them to generate creative ideas in the bioelectronics area,” Yoon said. “For example, a bionanohybrid-based biohybrid robot can be completely different from a cell-based biohybrid robot or a soft material-based robot. We hope our work can also lead to a breakthrough in the advancement of other research fields.”

Source: “Towards bioelectronic device based on bionanohybrid composed of nanomaterials and biomaterials: From nucleic acid and protein to living cell,” by Jinho Yoon, Joungpyo Lim, Minkyu Shin, Taek Lee, and Jeong-Woo Choi, Applied Physics Reviews (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0116714 .