Unlocking Richer Intracellular Recordings
By Sara Vaccar
Behind every heartbeat and brain signal is a massive orchestra of electrical activity. While current electrophysiology observation techniques have been mostly limited to extracellular recordings, a forward-thinking group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia has identified a flexible, low-cost, and biocompatible platform for enabling richer intracellular recordings.
The group’s unique “across the ocean” partnership started two years ago at the Bioelectronics Winter School (BioEl) with libations and a bar napkin sketch. It has evolved into research published today in Science Advances, detailing a novel microelectrode platform that leverages three-dimensional fuzzy graphene (3DFG) to enable richer intracellular recordings of cardiac action potentials with high signal to noise ratio. This advancement could revolutionize ongoing research related to neurodegenerative and cardiac diseases, as well as the development of new therapeutic strategies.
A key leader in this work, Tzahi Cohen-Karni, associate professor of biomedical engineeringOpens in new window and materials science and engineeringOpens in new window, has studied the properties, effects, and potential applications of graphene throughout his entire career. Now, he is taking a collaborative step in a different direction, using a vertically-grown orientation of the extraordinary carbon-based material (3DFG) to access the intracellular compartment of the cell and record intracellular electrical activity.
Continue reading: https://engineering.cmu.edu/news-events/news/2021/04/07-intracellular-recordings.html