Bioelectronics - Making Cells Dance

The IET Scotland 2010 Christmas lecture to be presented by Professor Ronald Pethig and colleagues from the Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, will demonstrate how the techniques that electronic engineers have developed to produce computer chips are being applied to the biomedical and life sciences.

Starting from basic concepts, examples will be given of cells moving and spinning under the command of electrical signals generated within lab-on-chip devices. Can such technique be developed to provide new methods for diagnosing disease, for discovering new drugs, and for exploring how stem cells can be used to repair damaged tissues?

A dish of brain cells, grown to form a neural network and modified to give out pulses of light when the cells are in action, will be shown 'thinking'. Can we use controlled pulses of light from the pixels of the world's smallest TV screen to turn on individual neurons in this network and to program them? Can we then use an array of micro-detectors, each element of which can detect a single photon of light, to monitor what this engineered network of brain cells is thinking or computing? Could a combination of such techniques, both already developed as separate technologies, be implanted into a human brain to control or repair brain damage? Can we build networks of 'brain' cells into silicon architectures, and programme and read their outputs using light signals instead of electrical signals.

All of these questions - and perhaps more - will be explored with demonstrations in the presentation by Professor Ronald Pethig and colleagues from Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems.

The lecture will be presented in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Perth on dates between 29th November and 10th December 2010 with further details on dates and booking arrangements being publicised in the Autumn.

Please see our Future Events andPast Events information.