DVIDS – News – Basic research narrowly wins: Unleashing the possibilities of integrating microelectronics into biology

Building on fundamental research from 2014, an effort was born to create a bio-electronic platform that uses genetically engineered canine olfactory receptors to rapidly capture information and translate it into an actionable electronic form – in other words, an “electronic nose.”

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Chemical and Biological Technologies Division, in its capacity as the Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for Chemical and Biological Defense, an integral part of the Chemical and Biological Defense Program, has been working with the University of Maryland (UMd) to develop live, “rewired” bacteria that can autonomously monitor soldiers (for example, their gastrointestinal tract), detect pathogens, and synthesize and deliver therapeutics for effective treatment.

Initial studies focused on engineering bacteria that would recognize and kill pathogens or swim to cancer cells and activate gene expression processes that alter genetic information and resulting cellular biochemistry and induce cell death. The goal was to design and build new bacteria by combining the tools of synthetic biology with biofabrication, using the self-movement and gene expression capabilities found in nature to create bacteria programmed to be on guard against harmful bacteria and viruses. Biofabrication expanded the reach of synthetic biology by providing means to integrate biological constructs into microelectronically fabricated systems to test their function and enable electronic control.

The DTRA JSTO program catalyzed a new field that integrates electronics with biology and the direct transfer of information between two media of information flow that do not normally overlap – in electronics through the electron and in biology through the molecule. The researchers found that they could transmit information that is rich in content, fast, easily accessible and bidirectional. They applied their discovery in several areas:

• Reprogramming microbes as biosensors to detect Staphylococcus aureus (Staph) or to prevent intestinal infections or colon cancer caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• Assessing the ability of melanin to bind oxygen radicals and its possible associations with mental health
• Quantification of antibody quality
• Providing a new method to measure oxidative stress that correlates with disease progression

An effort is currently underway to address one of the greatest challenges in sensing: bioengineering a dog’s sense of smell to create living microelectronics – a smarter nose. A joint project between the US Army Research Laboratory and the University of Maryland aims to construct a tabletop prototype device that will be converted into a working handheld device that can be used on the battlefield.

Contact: Robert E. Botto, PhD, [email protected]