Bioelectronics

Bioelectronics is an interdisciplinary research field that includes elements of chemistry, biology, physics, electronics, nanotechnology, and materials science. It seeks to exploit the growing technical ability to integrate biological cells and biomolecules with electronics to develop a broad range of functional devices.
An important research aspect is the development of the communication interface between the biological materials and electronic components and novel approaches to study cellular functions at the micro and nano-scale. This seeks at a better understanding of the physiological behaviour and of mechanisms of the neuronal information processing and new tools for diagnostics and imaging. The use of biomolecules and biological cells as the building blocks of higher-level functional devices can be used for recognition or sensing, such as biosensors. Bioelectronics research also seeks to use biomolecules to perform the electronic functions that semiconductor devices currently perform. Andreas Offenhäusser and his colleagues have research activities in both of the following general domains:

• Micro/Nano-electronics for Life-Sciences, i.e. how micro/nano electronic systems can help to solve important problems in life sciences. Examples include integrated devices for detection of cell response, DNA, proteins, and small molecules.
• Life-Sciences for micro/nano electronic systems, i.e. how we can learn from nature to build micro and nano electronic devices. Examples include protein mediated electronic devices and neuro-electronic circuitries.

Further details about the activity of the group