Manu Sebastian Mannoor

3D Printed Bionic Ears

The ability to three-dimensionally interweave biological tissue with functional electronics could enable the creation of bionic organs possessing enhanced functionalities over their human counterparts. Conventional electronic devices are inherently two-dimensional, preventing seamless multidimensional integration with synthetic biology, as the processes and materials are very different. Here, we present a novel strategy for overcoming these difficulties via additive manufacturing of biological cells with structural and nanoparticle derived electronic elements. As a proof of concept, we generated a bionic ear via 3D printing of a cell-seeded hydrogel matrix in the precise anatomic geometry of a human ear, along with an intertwined conducting polymer consisting of infused silver nanoparticles. This allowed for in vitro culturing of cartilage tissue around an inductive coil antenna in the ear, which subsequently enables readout of inductively-coupled signals from cochlea-shaped electrodes. The printed ear exhibits enhanced auditory sensing for radio frequency reception, and complementary left and right ears can listen to stereo audio music. Overall, our approach suggests a means to intricately merge biologic and nanoelectronic functionalities via 3D printing.

Graphene-based wireless bacteria detection on tooth enamel

Direct interfacing of nanosensors onto biomaterials could impact health quality monitoring and adaptive threat detection. Graphene is capable of highly sensitive analyte detection due to its nanoscale nature. Here we show that graphene can be printed onto water-soluble silk. This in turn permits intimate biotransfer of graphene nanosensors onto biomaterials, including tooth enamel. The result is a fully biointerfaced sensing platform, which can be tuned to detect target analytes. For example, via self-assembly of antimicrobial peptides onto graphene, we show bioselective detection of bacteria at single-cell levels. Incorporation of a resonant coil eliminates the need for onboard power and external connections. Combining these elements yields two-tiered interfacing of peptide-graphene nanosensors with biomaterials. In particular, we demonstrate integration onto a tooth for remote monitoring of respiration and bacteria detection in saliva. Overall, this strategy of interfacing graphene nanosensors with biomaterials represents a versatile approach for ubiquitous detection of biochemical targets.

Electrical detection of pathogenic bacteria via immobilized antimicrobial peptides

The development of a robust and portable biosensor for the detection of pathogenic bacteria could impact areas ranging from water-quality monitoring to testing of pharmaceutical products for bacterial contamination. Of particular interest are detectors that combine the natural specificity of biological recognition with sensitive, label-free sensors providing electronic readout. Evolution has tailored antimicrobial peptides to exhibit broad-spectrum activity against pathogenic bacteria, while retaining a high degree of robustness. Here, we report selective and sensitive detection of infectious agents via electronic detection based on antimicrobial peptide-functionalized microcapacitive electrode arrays. The semiselective antimicrobial peptide magainin I—which occurs naturally on the skin of African clawed frogs—was immobilized on gold microelectrodes via a C-terminal cysteine residue. Significantly, exposing the sensor to various concentrations of pathogenic Escherichia coli revealed detection limits of approximately 1 bacterium/μL, a clinically useful detection range. The peptide-microcapacitive hybrid device was further able to demonstrate both Gram-selective detection as well as interbacterial strain differentiation, while maintaining recognition capabilities toward pathogenic strains of E. coli and Salmonella. Finally, we report a simulated “water-sampling” chip, consisting of a microfluidic flow cell integrated onto the hybrid sensor, which demonstrates real-time on-chip monitoring of the interaction of E. coli cells with the antimicrobial peptides. The combination of robust, evolutionarily tailored peptides with electronic read-out monitoring electrodes may open exciting avenues in both fundamental studies of the interactions of bacteria with antimicrobial peptides, as well as the practical use of these devices as portable pathogen detectors.

Silk‐Based Conformal, Adhesive, Edible Food Sensors

An array of passive metamaterial antennas fabricated on all protein-based silk substrates were conformally transferred and adhered to the surface of an apple. This process allows the opportunity for intimate contact of micro- and nanostructures that can probe, and accordingly monitor changes in, their surrounding environment. This provides in situ monitoring of food quality. It is to be noted that this type of sensor consists of all edible and biodegradable components, holding utility and potential relevance for healthcare and food/consumer products and markets.

BioMEMS –Advancing the Frontiers of Medicine

Biological and medical application of micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) is currently seen as an area of high potential impact. Integration of biology and microtechnology has resulted in the development of a number of platforms for improving biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies. This review provides a general overview of the applications and the opportunities presented by MEMS in medicine by classifying these platforms according to their applications in the medical field.

Bionic Graphene Nanosensors

The synergistic integration of electronics with biological systems could enable the development of novel sensing devices that could provide new fundamental insights to biomolecular interactions, as well as facilitating the development of novel biointerfaced device architectures. Indeed, the creation of high-performance biomedical sensors with real-time, point-of-care detection could potentially revolutionize the field of early diagnosis and treatment of diseases, improving quality of life. Of particular interest is multitiered interfacing of sensing materials with biology; for example, by coupling the innate selectivity of naturally evolved biomolecules with highly sensitive nanosensors, and subsequently biointerfacing such devices onto the body for real-time detection. This is particularly useful for continual monitoring and diagnosis of complex diseases such as asthma, in which understandings of disease development and the role of environmental triggers are limited. Here, we provide an overview of our specific contributions in: (1) biotransfering graphene sensors onto biological systems to enable a unique bionic nanosensor platform, (2) the detection of bacteria using such platforms via the coupling of antimicrobial peptide bio-recognition molecules to the graphene transducer, (3) the integration of an inductive meander coil with such devices to enable wireless powering and remote readout, (4) the scaling of such devices to wafer-scale arrays using standard microfabrication processing techniques, and (5) the functionalization of these graphene device arrays with a variety of antibodies for ultrasensitive detection of cytokines that are relevant to the detection and diagnosis of asthma from exhaled breath condensate. These results suggest a next-generation “bionic nanosensing” platform that may ultimately promote effective, noninvasive diagnosis and advanced mediation of diseases via early onset detection and continuous tracking of disease progression. Ultimately, large-scale adoption of such systems may enable population pool clinical studies involving dynamic, noninvasive collection of biomarkers for health infrastructure statistical analyses. The graphene bionic nanosensor platform thus represents a powerful new biointerfaced sensing paradigm, with a diverse range of applications.

Nano-scale Debye Capacitive Sensors for Highly Sensitive, Label-free, Nucleic Acid Analysis

An electrochemical capacitive sensor with electrode separation in the order of the Electrical Double Layer width (Debye length) of the analyte solution is presented for extremely sensitive and label-free analysis of Nucleic Acids. As the Electrical Double Layers (EDL) from both the capacitive electrodes interact and overlap each other in the reduced space confinement, the contribution from the electrode polarization effects and noises due to bulk sample resistance are found to be minimized. The dielectric property changes during hybridization reaction were measured using 10-mer nucleotide sequences. A 30-45% change in relative permittivity (capacitance) was observed due to DNA hybridization at 10Hz.