Hydrogel iontronic devices can emulate biological functions and communicate with living matter. The collaborative work from the departments of Chemistry, the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Oxford and the Institute of Electrical and Microengineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne demonstrates a droplet-based synthetic synapse with ionic-polymer-mediated long-term plasticity which could serve as a biocompatible sensor to record electrophysiological signals from cardiomyocytes.
As cellular signalling relies on ion transport, dropletronics can also act as a biocompatible interface between electronic and biological systems for sensing cardiac activity. The use of cardiomyocytes in this research suggests the potential for dropletronics to become a valuable tool for investigating cancer-treatment induced cardiotoxicity.
To find out more, please see the full article in Science.