Electrical signals appear as a function of cells but some bacteria take it a step further and actually use current to metal surfaces as their way of ‘breathing’. We engineer bioelectrical communication for readouts of cellular functions. This new class of smart, self-renewing nanostructured systems has the potential to revolutionize environmental sensing and energy harvesting applications and to open new avenues to program cellular behavior through electrically controlled genetic circuits. Building towards this vision, the long-term objectives of the our research is to understand the principles which govern electron flow across living to non-living interfaces and to use those principles to create electron transfer pathways between domesticated microbes and electrodes via genetic and materials surface engineering.

Here are some of our key papers on bioelectronics:

“Real-time bioelectronic sensing of environmental contaminants,” Joshua T. Atkinson, Lin Su, Xu Zhang, George N. Bennett, Jonathan J. Silberg & Caroline M. Ajo-Franklin, Nature (2022)

“Precise electronic control of redox reactions inside Escherichia coli using a genetic module,” M. Baruch, S. Tejedor-Sanz, L. Su, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, PLOS One (2021)

“A portable bioelectronic sensing system (BESSY) for environmental deployment incorporating differential microbial sensing in miniaturized reactors.” A. Y. Zhou, M. Baruch, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, and M. M. Maharbiz, PLOS ONE, 12, e0184994 (2017)

“Transforming exoelectrogens for biotechnology using synthetic biology.” M. A. TerAvest and C. M. Ajo-Franklin, Biotechnology & Bioengineering, 113, 687–697 (2016)

“CymA and exogenous flavins improve extracellular electron transfer and couple it to cell growth in Mtr-expressing Escherichia coli.” H. M. Jensen, M. A. TerAvest, M. K. Kokish and C. M. Ajo-Franklin, ACS Synthetic Biology (2016)

“The Mtr pathway of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 couples substrate utilization to current production in Escherichia coli.” M. A. TerAvest, T. J. Zajdel, and C. M. Ajo-Franklin, ChemElectroChem 1, 1874-1879 (2014)

“Engineering of a synthetic electron conduit in living cells.” H. M. Jensen, A. E. Albers, K. Malley, Y. Y. Londer, B. E. Cohen, B. A. Helms, P. Weigele, J. T. Groves, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA,107, 19213-19218 (2010)