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Carbon Nanotubes By stretching a carbon nanotube between two electrodes and
adding some biotech wizardry, researchers have created a transistor that turns
the body's chemical energy into electricity.
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab have taken a big step toward bridging the gap between mind and machine. Using ATP – adenosine triphosphate, the molecular medium of energy exchange present in nearly all living cells – the team has created a novel transistor that could allow electronic devices that can be hooked directly into the nervous system.
The transistor, which creator Aleksandr Noy calls the first integrated bioelectronic system, consists of a carbon nanotube stretched between two electrodes that is wrapped in an insulator at both ends but exposed in the middle. The transistor is then wrapped in a lipid bi-layer akin to those that surround the cells that make up our bodies. When the team applied voltage to the electrodes and poured a solution full of ATP and potassium and sodium ions over the transistor, current flowed from electrode to electrode.
The magic is in the lipid bi-layer, which contains an ATP-sensitive protein that serves as a kind of ion pump when ATP is present. The lipid hydrolyses ATP molecules, with each occurence causing three sodium ions to move one way through the lipid and two potassium ions to move the other way, netting one charge across the bi-layer to the nanotube.
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The transistor, which creator Aleksandr Noy calls the first integrated bioelectronic system, consists of a carbon nanotube stretched between two electrodes that is wrapped in an insulator at both ends but exposed in the middle. The transistor is then wrapped in a lipid bi-layer akin to those that surround the cells that make up our bodies. When the team applied voltage to the electrodes and poured a solution full of ATP and potassium and sodium ions over the transistor, current flowed from electrode to electrode.
The magic is in the lipid bi-layer, which contains an ATP-sensitive protein that serves as a kind of ion pump when ATP is present. The lipid hydrolyses ATP molecules, with each occurence causing three sodium ions to move one way through the lipid and two potassium ions to move the other way, netting one charge across the bi-layer to the nanotube.
>
adding some biotech wizardry, researchers have created a transistor that turns
the body's chemical energy into electricity.