Guest Seminar - Exploring Electrohydrodynamics based Functional Nanofibers for Wireless Neuromodulation

The significance of the overall fibrillar and porous nanoscale topography of the extracellular matrix in promoting essential cellular processes has led to consideration of biomaterials with nanofibrous features. Of the many methods for fabricating fibers with micrometer and nanometer diameters, electrohydrodyanmics (EHD) based spinning is simplest, most straightforward and cost-effective. This approach becomes intriguingly powerful when remarkable morphological features were combined with unique chemical, physical, or mechanical functionalisation with ease and control. Alongside the widely studied pathways of biochemical regulation by chemokines, cytokines and growth factors, one often-overlooked but significant influence over the behavior of biological systems is electrical signaling. Voltage gradients among all somatic cells (not just excitable nerve and muscle) control cell behavior, and the ionic coupling of cells into networks via electrochemical synapses allows them to implement tissuelevel patterning decisions, which is called developmental bioelectricity. Electrical modulation is therefore a potential target for many new therapies for a range of diseases and biological functions. Our current research focuses on advancing EHD technologies to explore multi-dimensional nano-biointerfaces that synergise the nano structural induction and the bioelectrical/biochemical signalling to affect cellular behaviours, for biomedical applications in neuromodulation and tissue engineering.