Bioelectronic medicine employs electrical, magnetic, optical, ultrasound, chemical, etc. pulses to affect and modify neurological behavior which in turn modulates bodily functions as an alternative to drug-based interventions. It is envisaged to transform how we practice medicine and dramatically improve the outcome and reduce the cost of healthcare. In this talk, I will give an overview of Bioelectronic Medicine Roadmap formulated and published by the Semiconductor Synthetic Biology (SemiSynBio) Committee of Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC). I will then discuss structured glassy carbon nanorods for electrochemical detection of dopamine—a neurotransmitter that is associated with brain reward system and some of the debilitating neurodegenerative conditions. These glassy carbon nanorods were fabricated by pyrolysis of a lithographically defined polymeric nanostructure. Compared with carbon fibers, the nanostructured glassy carbon nanorods provide about 2× higher sensitivity per unit area for dopamine sensing and more than 5× higher signal per unit area at low concentrations of dopamine. This scalable fabrication strategy glassy carbon nanorods offers the potential to integrate these nanoscale carbon rods with an integrated circuit control system and to transmit the data from the integrated dopamine sensor to datacenters for analysis and a closed-loop intervention.

Bioelectronic materials: Nanostructured glassy carbon for dopamine detection

ACS Fall 2021

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