Redox-Enabled Bio-Electronics for Information Acquisition and Transmission

Biology uses an electron-based modality that involves reduction and oxidation (redox) reactions, and this redox modality has both molecular and electrical features. Importantly, the electrical features are accessible to convenient electrode measurements, but this electron-based redox modality is fundamentally different from biology’s ion-based electrical modality that is prominent in neural and neuromuscular communication. Here, we review recent efforts to develop redox based bioelectronics for the acquisition of information and actuation of responses. Specifically, we illustrate how electrodes enable comparatively simple modulation/demodulation because electrodes readily transduce electrical inputs into redox-signals– in some cases, the same redox signals (i.e., reactive oxygen species; ROS) used by biology. The propagation of redox signals occurs through diffusion and reaction mechanisms involving redox reaction networks. We further describe how advanced biological methods (protein engineering and synthetic biology) are being used to enable a targeting of redox inputs to actuate specific responses at molecular (i.e., protein conjugation) and cellular (i.e., electrogenetic) levels. In summary, we envision that redox-based bioelectronics could enable entirely new opportunities for applying electronics to: provide new experimental approaches for the study of redox-biology; yield systems-level measurements for clinical practice; and facilitate a fusion of the information-processing capabilities of biology and electronics.