Category Archives: human enhancement

Key obstacle to integrated bioelectronic implants removed with use of solid-state hydrogel

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Cyborgs calling? It seems a logical extension from the work being described in Michael Berger’s August 28, 2025 Nanowerk Spotlight article, Note: A link has been removed,

Electronic devices that can sense, process, and respond to biological signals are reshaping how researchers approach medicine, neuroscience, and human–machine interaction [emphasis mine]. These systems, often soft, flexible, and powered by organic materials, promise to monitor brain activity, stimulate nerves, and control prosthetics with a level of precision and integration that rigid silicon electronics cannot match. The ambition is clear: build circuits that are not just compatible with the body, but functionally embedded within it.

Yet at the core of many of these bioelectronic systems lies a persistent technical obstacle. Organic electrochemical transistors—or OECTs—have emerged as one of the most promising components for such interfaces. They operate at low voltages, work well in wet environments, and can amplify faint biological signals. But their performance has depended almost entirely on liquid electrolytes—saline-based solutions that shuttle ions in and out of the transistor channel. While effective at driving fast switching and strong responses, these liquids are difficult to confine. They spread, leak, evaporate, and cause interference between closely packed devices. They make miniaturization harder, circuit integration more complex, and long-term implantation more fragile.

Solid-state electrolytes have been explored as a replacement. Some are made from ionic gels or charged polymers, others from hydrogels with modified compositions. But each compromise has created new limitations: reduced ion mobility, patterning challenges, long response times, or incompatibility with both p-type and n-type transistor operation. These tradeoffs have made it difficult to build dense, fast, reliable circuits for real use in living systems.

Now, researchers in Sweden report a material system that brings this goal closer. Writing in Advanced Materials (“A Photo‐Patternable Solid‐State Electrolyte for High‐Performance, Miniaturized, and Implantable Organic Electrochemical Transistor‐Based Circuits”), the team presents a hydrogel-based solid-state electrolyte that is both photopatternable and fast enough to match the performance of liquid systems.

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This turns out to be a hydrogel and seaweed story, from Berger’s August 28, 2025 article,

Using a naturally derived polymer from seaweed and a light-activated crosslinker, they’ve built a platform that enables high-speed operation, micrometer-scale precision, and compatibility with flexible, implantable devices. The system supports both logic circuits and spiking neural mimics, all operating on a solid-state foundation—offering a solution to a long-standing bottleneck in bioelectronic circuit design.

This work introduces a solid-state hydrogel based on ι-carrageenan, a charged polysaccharide extracted from red seaweed, crosslinked with poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA). When exposed to ultraviolet light, PEGDA forms a permanent network that locks the ι-carrageenan into a soft, water-stable gel. The result is a solid-state electrolyte that can be patterned with high precision, while maintaining ionic conductivity at levels comparable to liquid saline.

The hydrogel can be processed as a liquid and selectively hardened using light exposure. Before crosslinking, it spreads easily for coating or printing. After UV exposure, it forms a water-insoluble gel that can be patterned down to 15 micrometers. This resolution is sufficient for building densely packed circuits on flexible substrates. Crucially, the material retains ionic conductivity above 10 millisiemens per centimeter—on par with 0.1 molar sodium chloride. That conductivity enables fast ion movement through the gel, preserving the switching speed and signal fidelity expected of high-performance OECTs.

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To move beyond digital logic, the researchers designed a circuit that mimics the behavior of a spiking neuron. This organic electrochemical neuron (OECN) was based on the leaky integrate-and-fire model used in artificial neural networks. It combines complementary OECTs with a reset transistor and integrates them into a spiking architecture that converts a continuous input into transient voltage pulses. The circuit was encapsulated using a biocompatible layer of parylene and fabricated on an ultrathin flexible substrate.

To demonstrate biological relevance, the team implanted this device in mice. They connected it to flexible stimulation electrodes coated with PEDOT:PSS, a conductive polymer that lowers electrode impedance. The system was wrapped around the cervical vagus nerve, a major nerve involved in autonomic regulation of the heart and digestive system. When inactive, the device produced no physiological effect. When activated to spike at frequencies between 1 and 20 hertz, it induced a measurable drop in heart rate of 2 to 4 percent—consistent with the known effects of vagus nerve stimulation.

Unlike previous systems based on liquid electrolytes, this device remained stable after implantation, with no fluid reservoirs or leakage pathways. Its function did not degrade after encapsulation, and spiking behavior remained consistent. The reduction in spiking frequency observed after implantation was attributed to the mouse acting as an external load, not to any failure of the circuit.

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The platform introduced in this study enables a new level of complexity and stability in soft bioelectronics. It demonstrates that solid-state, hydrogel-based circuits can meet the electrical demands of real-world applications without sacrificing manufacturability or implant safety. By bridging the gap between ionic transport and scalable circuit design, this work sets the foundation for future generations of bioelectronic therapies and neural interfaces.

Berger’s August 28, 2025 article offers a lot more detail and his explanations tend to be accessible (relatively speaking).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A Photo-Patternable Solid-State Electrolyte for High-Performance, Miniaturized, and Implantable Organic Electrochemical Transistor-Based Circuits by Miao Xiong, Chi-Yuan Yang, Junpeng Ji, April S. Caravaca, Qi Guo, Qifan Li, Mary J. Donahue, Dace Gao, Han-Yan Wu, Adam Marks, Yincai Xu, Deyu Tu, Iain McCulloch, Peder S. Olofsson, Simone Fabiano. Advanced Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.20250931 First published: 22 August 2025

This paper is open access.

Two advances in the field of prosthetic implants

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I have a story from New Zealand and another one from Spain.

Rats walk again

A June 28, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces spinal cord research from New Zealand,

Spinal cord injuries are currently incurable with devastating effects on people’s lives, but now a trial at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland offers hope for an effective treatment.

Spinal cord injuries shatter the signal between the brain and body, often resulting in a loss of function.”Unlike a cut on the skin, which typically heals on its own, the spinal cord does not regenerate effectively, making these injuries devastating and currently incurable,” says lead researcher Dr Bruce Harland, a senior research fellow in the School of Pharmacy at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

Before birth, and to a lesser extent afterwards, naturally occurring electric fields play a vital role in early nervous system development, encouraging and guiding the growth of nerve tissue along the spinal cord. Scientists are now harnessing this same electrical guidance system in the lab.An implantable electronic device has restored movement following spinal cord injury in an animal study, raising hopes for an effective treatment for humans and even their pets.

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A June 27, 2025 University of Auckland press release, which originated the news item, describes the implantable device in more detail, Note: A link has been removed,

“We developed an ultra-thin implant designed to sit directly on the spinal cord, precisely positioned over the injury site in rats,” Dr Harland says.

The device delivers a carefully controlled electrical current across the injury site.

“The aim is to stimulate healing so people can recover functions lost through spinal-cord injury,” Professor Darren Svirskis, director of the CatWalk Cure Programme at the University’s School of Pharmacy says.

Unlike humans, rats have a greater capacity for spontaneous recovery after spinal cord injury, which allowed researchers to compare natural healing with healing supported by electrical stimulation.

After four weeks, animals that received daily electric field treatment showed improved movement compared with those who did not.

Throughout the 12-week study, they responded more quickly to gentle touch.

“This indicates that the treatment supported recovery of both movement and sensation,” Harland says.

“Just as importantly, our analysis confirmed that the treatment did not cause inflammation or other damage to the spinal cord, demonstrating that it was not only effective but also safe.”

This new study, published in a leading journal, has come out of a partnership between the University of Auckland and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. See Nature Communications.

“Long term, the goal is to transform this technology into a medical device that could benefit people living with these life-changing spinal-cord injuries,” says Professor Maria Asplund of Chalmers University of Technology.

“This study offers an exciting proof of concept showing that electric field treatment can support recovery after spinal cord injury,” says doctoral student Lukas Matter, also from Chalmers University.

The next step is to explore how different doses, including the strength, frequency, and duration of the treatment, affect recovery, to discover the most effective recipe for spinal-cord repair.

This approach is quite different to that used by the Israeli team featured in my August 22, 2025 posting “Walking again? Israeli team gears up to implant bioengineered spinal cord tissue into paralyzed patient.” It would also appear that at least a few years will pass before the team in New Zealand is ready for human clinical trials.

Here’s a link to and a citation to the New Zealand team’s paper,

Daily electric field treatment improves functional outcomes after thoracic contusion spinal cord injury in rats by Bruce Harland, Lukas Matter, Salvador Lopez, Barbara Fackelmeier, Brittany Hazelgrove, Svenja Meissner, Simon O’Carroll, Brad Raos, Maria Asplund & Darren Svirskis. Nature Communications volume 16, Article number: 5372 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60332-0 Published: 26 June 2025

Thia paper is open access.

Improving tolerance for prosthetic implants

A June 30, 2025 Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona press release (also on EurekAert) announces development of a new coating for prosthetic devices,

An international research team, including scientists from the Institut de Neurociències at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has developed a new solution to reduce the immune response triggered by neural prosthetics used after limb amputations or severe nerve injuries. The approach consists of coating the electronic implants (which connect the prosthetic device to the patient’s nervous system) with a potent anti-inflammatory drug. This coating helps the body better tolerate the implant, improving its long-term performance and stability.

Neural electrode implants are commonly used in prosthetics to restore communication between the device and the nervous system. However, their long-term effectiveness can be compromised by the body’s natural immune reaction to foreign objects, which leads to the formation of scar tissue around the implant and can impair its function.

Now, a recent study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Università di Ferrara, the University of Freiburg, and Chalmers University of Technology, conducted as part of the European collaborative project BioFINE, reports a novel method to improve the biocompatibility and chronic stability of these electrodes.

The technique involves activating and modifying the surface of polyimide (a material commonly used for implanted electrodes) using a chemical strategy that enables the covalent binding of the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone. This innovation allows the drug to be released at the implant site slowly over at least two months, a critical period when the immune system typically mounts its strongest response.

Biological tests showed that this approach reduces inflammation-related signals in immune cells, while maintaining the material’s biocompatibility and mechanical integrity. Animal testing further confirmed that the dexamethasone-releasing implants significantly reduce immune reactions and scar tissue formation around the device.

These findings suggest that the slow and localized release of dexamethasone from the implant surface could extend the functional lifespan of neural prostheses, offering a promising step forward in addressing the long-term challenges of implantable neurotechnology.

“This is a main step that has to be complemented by the demonstration in vivo that this coating improves the functional performance of chronically implanted electrodes in the peripheral nerves, for stimulating and recording nerve signals”, says Dr. Xavier Navarro, principal investigator of the UAB team in the BioFINE project.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Covalent Binding of Dexamethasone to Polyimide Improves Biocompatibility of Neural Implantable Devices by Giulia Turrin, Jose Crugeiras, Chiara Bisquoli, Davide Barboni, Martina Catani, Bruno Rodríguez-Meana, Rita Boaretto, Michele Albicini, Stefano Caramori, Claudio Trapella, Thomas Stieglitz, Yara Baslan, Hanna Karlsson-Fernberg, Fernanda L. Narvaez-Chicaiza, Edoardo Marchini, Alberto Cavazzini, Ruben López-Vales, Maria Asplund, Xavier Navarro, Stefano Carli. Advanced Healthcare Materials Volume 14, Issue 21 August 19, 2025 2405004 First published online: 17 June 2025 OI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202405004

This paper is open access.

A collaborating robot as part of your “extended” body

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Caption: Researchers from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa (Italy) and Brown University in Providence (USA) have discovered that people sense the hand of a humanoid robot as part of their body schema, particularly when it comes to carrying out a task together, like slicing a bar of soap. Credit: IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

A September 12, 2025 Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) press release (also on EurekAlert but published on September 11, 2025) describes some intriguing research into robot/human relationships,

Researchers from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa (Italy) and Brown University in Providence (USA) have discovered that people sense the hand of a humanoid robot as part of their body schema, particularly when it comes to carrying out a task together, like slicing a bar of soap. The study has been published in the journal iScience and can pave the way for a better design of robots that have to function in close contact with humans, such as those used in rehabilitation.

The project, led by Alessandra Sciutti, IIT Principal Investigator of the CONTACT unit at IIT, in collaboration with Brown University professor Joo-Hyun Song, explored whether unconscious mechanisms that shape interactions between humans also emerge in interactions between a person and a humanoid robot.

Researchers focused on a phenomenon known as the “near-hand effect”, in which the presence of a hand near an object alters visual attention of a person, because the brain is preparing to use the object. Moreover, the study considers the human brain’s ability to create its “body schema” to move more efficiently in the surrounding space, by integrating objects into it as well.

Through an unconscious process shaped by external stimuli, the brain builds a “body schema” that helps us avoid obstacles or grab objects without looking at them. Any tools can become part of this internal map as long as they are useful for a task, like a tennis racket that feels like an arm extension to the player who uses it daily. Since body schema is constantly evolving, the research team led by Sciutti explored whether a robot could also become part of it.

Giulia Scorza Azzarà, PhD student at IIT and first author of the study, designed and analyzed the results of experiments where people carried out a joint task with iCub, the IIT’s child-sized humanoid robot. They sliced a bar of soap together by using a steel wire, alternately pulled by the person and the robotic partner.

After the activity, researchers verified the integration of the robotic hand into the body schema, quantifying the near hand effect with the Posner cueing task. This test challenges participants to press a key as quickly as possible to indicate on which side of the screen an image appears, while an object placed right next to the screen influences their attention. Data from 30 volunteers showed a specific pattern: participants reacted faster when images appeared next to the robot’s hand, showing that their brains had treated it much like a near hand. Thanks to control experiments, researchers proved that this effect appeared only in those who had sliced the soap with the robot.

The strength of the near hand effect also depended on how the humanoid robot moved. When the robot’s gestures were broad, fluid, and well synchronized with the human ones, the effect was stronger, resulting in a better integration of iCub’s hand into the participant’s body schema. Physical closeness between the robotic hand and the person also played a role: the nearer the robot’s hand was to the participant during the slicing task, the greater the effect.

To assess how participants perceived the robot after working together on the task, researchers gathered information through questionnaires. The results show that the more participants saw iCub as competent and pleasant, the more intense the cognitive effect was. Attributing human-like traits or emotions to iCub further boosted the hand’s integration in the body schema; in other words, partnership and empathy enhanced the cognitive bond with the robot.

The team carried out experiments with a humanoid robot under controlled conditions, paving the way for a deeper understanding of human-machine interactions. Psychological factors will be essential to designing robots able to adapt to human stimuli and able to provide a more intuitive and effective robotic experience. These are crucial features for application of robotics in motor rehabilitation, virtual reality, and assistive technologies.

The research is part of the ERC-funded wHiSPER project, coordinated by IIT’s CONTACT (COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies) unit.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Collaborating with a robot biases human spatial attention by Giulia Scorza Azzarà, Joshua Zonca, Francesco Rea, Joo-Hyun Song, Alessandra Sciutti. iScience Volume 28, Issue 7, 18 July 2025, 112791 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112791 Available online 2 June 2025, Version of Record 18 June 2025 Under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International Deed

This paper is open access.

This business of a robot becoming an extension of your body, i.e., becoming part of you, is reminiscent of some issues brought up in my October 21, 2025 posting “Copyright, artificial intelligence, and thoughts about cyborgs,” such as, N. Katherine Hayles’s assemblages and, more specifically, the issues brought up in the section titled, “Symbiosis and your implant.”

Canadian research into relationships with domestic robots

Zhao Zhao’s (assistant professor in Computer Science at the University of Guelph) September 11, 2025 essay for The Conversation highlights results from one of her recently published studies, Note: Links have been removed,

Social companion robots are no longer just science fiction. In classrooms, libraries and homes, these small machines are designed to read stories, play games or offer comfort to children. They promise to support learning and companionship, yet their role in family life often extends beyond their original purpose.

In our recent study of families in Canada and the United States, we found that even after a children’s reading robot “retired” or was no longer in active and regular use, most households chose to keep it — treating it less like a gadget and more like a member of the family.

Luka is a small, owl-shaped reading robot, designed to scan and read picture books aloud, making storytime more engaging for young children.

In 2021, my colleague Rhonda McEwen and I set out to explore how 20 families used Luka. We wanted to study not just how families used Luka initially, but how that relationship was built and maintained over time, and what Luka came to mean in the household. Our earlier work laid the foundation for this by showing how families used Luka in daily life and how the bond grew over the first months of use.

When we returned in 2025 to follow up with 19 of those families, we were surprised by what we found. Eighteen households had chosen to keep Luka, even though its reading function was no longer useful to their now-older children. The robot lingered not because it worked better than before, but because it had become meaningful.

A deep, emotional connection

Children often spoke about Luka in affectionate, human-like terms. One called it “my little brother.” Another described it as their “only pet.” These weren’t just throwaway remarks — they reflected the deep emotional place the robot had taken in their everyday lives.

Because Luka had been present during important family rituals like bedtime reading, children remembered it as a companion.

Parents shared similar feelings. Several explained that Luka felt like “part of our history.” For them, the robot had become a symbol of their children’s early years, something they could not imagine discarding. One family even held a small “retirement ceremony” before passing Luka on to a younger cousin, acknowledging its role in their household.

Other families found new, practical uses. Luka was repurposed as a music player, a night light or a display item on a bookshelf next to other keepsakes. Parents admitted they continued to charge it because it felt like “taking care of” the robot.

The device had long outlived its original purpose, yet families found ways to integrate it into daily routines.

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Luka the robot. Image by Dr Zhao Zhao, University of Guelph

Zhao also wrote an August 8, 2025 essay about her 2025 followup study on families and their Luka robots for Frontiers Media,

What happens to a social robot after it retires? 

Four years ago, we placed a small owl-shaped reading robot named Luka into 20 families’ homes. At the time, the children were preschoolers, just learning to read. Luka’s job was clear: scan the pages of physical picture books and read them aloud, helping children build early literacy skills. 

That was in 2021. In 2025, we went back — not expecting to find much. The children had grown. The reading level was no longer age-appropriate. Surely, Luka’s work was done. 

Instead, we found something extraordinary.

18 of 19 families still had their robot. Many were still charging it. A few used it as a music player. Some simply left it on a shelf—next to baby books and keepsakes—its eyes still glowing gently. Luka had stayed.

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As more families bring AI-powered companions into their homes, we’ll need to better understand not only how they’re used — but how they’re remembered.

Because sometimes, the robot stays.

For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for the 2025 followup study,

The robot that stayed: understanding how children and families engage with a retired social robot by Zhao Zhao, Rhonda McEwen. Front. Robot. AI, 07 August 2025 Sec. Human-Robot Interaction Volume 12 – 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2025.1628089

This paper is open access.

Where does this leave us?

Trying to distinguish between robots and artificial intelligence (AI) can mean wading into murky waters. Not all robots have (AI) and not all AI is embodied in a robot and cyborgs add more complexity.

N. Katherine Hayles’ 2025 book “Bacteria to AI; Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts” mentioned in my October 21, 2025 posting “Copyright, artificial intelligence, and thoughts about cyborgs” does not make a distinction, which may or may not be important. We just don’t know. It seems we are in the process of redefining our relationships to the life and the objects around us as we redefine what it means to be a person.

Robot skin that feels heat, pain, and pressure

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This June 17, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces research into developing robot skin that more closely mimics skin (human and otherwise),

Scientists have developed a low-cost, durable, highly-sensitive robotic ‘skin’ that can be added to robotic hands like a glove, enabling robots to detect information about their surroundings in a way that’s similar to humans.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and University College London (UCL), developed the flexible, conductive skin, which is easy to fabricate and can be melted down and formed into a wide range of complex shapes. The technology senses and processes a range of physical inputs, allowing robots to interact with the physical world in a more meaningful way.

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A June 11, 2025 University of Cambridge news release (also on EurekAlert) by Sarah Collins, which originated the news item, describes what makes this work a breakthrough,

Unlike other solutions for robotic touch, which typically work via sensors embedded in small areas and require different sensors to detect different types of touch, the entirety of the electronic skin developed by the Cambridge and UCL researchers is a sensor, bringing it closer to our own sensor system: our skin.  

Although the robotic skin is not as sensitive as human skin, it can detect signals from over 860,000 tiny pathways in the material, enabling it to recognise different types of touch and pressure – like the tap of a finger, a hot or cold surface, damage caused by cutting or stabbing, or multiple points being touched at once – in a single material.

The researchers used a combination of physical tests and machine learning techniques to help the robotic skin ‘learn’ which of these pathways matter most, so it can sense different types of contact more efficiently.

In addition to potential future applications for humanoid robots or human prosthetics where a sense of touch is vital, the researchers say the robotic skin could be useful in industries as varied as the automotive sector or disaster relief. The results are reported in the journal Science Robotics.

Electronic skins work by converting physical information – like pressure or temperature – into electronic signals. In most cases, different types of sensors are needed for different types of touch – one type of sensor to detect pressure, another for temperature, and so on – which are then embedded into soft, flexible materials. However, the signals from these different sensors can interfere with each other, and the materials are easily damaged.

“Having different sensors for different types of touch leads to materials that are complex to make,” said lead author Dr David Hardman from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “We wanted to develop a solution that can detect multiple types of touch at once, but in a single material.”

“At the same time, we need something that’s cheap and durable, so that it’s suitable for widespread use,” said co-author Dr Thomas George Thuruthel from UCL.

Their solution uses one type of sensor that reacts differently to different types of touch, known as multi-modal sensing. While it’s challenging to separate out the cause of each signal, multi-modal sensing materials are easier to make and more robust.

The researchers melted down a soft, stretchy and electrically conductive gelatine-based hydrogel, and cast it into the shape of a human hand. They tested a range of different electrode configurations to determine which gave them the most useful information about different types of touch. From just 32 electrodes placed at the wrist, they were able to collect over 1.7 million pieces of information over the whole hand, thanks to the tiny pathways in the conductive material.

The skin was then tested on different types of touch: the researchers blasted it with a heat gun, pressed it with their fingers and a robotic arm, gently touched it with their fingers, and even cut it open with a scalpel. The team then used the data gathered during these tests to train a machine learning model so the hand would recognise what the different types of touch meant. 

“We’re able to squeeze a lot of information from these materials – they can take thousands of measurements very quickly,” said Hardman, who is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of co-author Professor Fumiya Iida. “They’re measuring lots of different things at once, over a large surface area.”

“We’re not quite at the level where the robotic skin is as good as human skin, but we think it’s better than anything else out there at the moment,” said Thuruthel. “Our method is flexible and easier to build than traditional sensors, and we’re able to calibrate it using human touch for a range of tasks.”

In future, the researchers are hoping to improve the durability of the electronic skin, and to carry out further tests on real-world robotic tasks.

The research was supported by Samsung Global Research Outreach Program, the Royal Society, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Fumiya Iida is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Multimodal information structuring with single-layer soft skins and high-density electrical impedance tomography by David Hardman, Thomas George Thuruthel, and Fumiya Iida. Science Robotics 11 Jun 2025 Vol 10, Issue 103 DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adq2303

This paper is behind a paywall.

Graphene foam with electrical feedthroughs could eliminate the need for joint replacement and offer better treatment for joint diseases

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I wish I had information about who to credit for this image,

[downloaded from https://statnano.com/news/74847/Electrifying-Results-Shed-Light-on-Graphene-Foam-as-a-Potential-Material-for-Lab-Grown-Cartilage]

A June 24, 2025 news item on StatNano announces some new work on the use of graphene foam for regenerative joint medicine,

Boise State University researchers have developed a new technique and platform to communicate with cells and help drive them towards cartilage formation.

Their work leverages a 3-dimensional biocompatible form of carbon known as graphene foam and is featured on a cover for the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials and Interfaces – – an interdisciplinary journal for chemists, engineers, physicists and biologists to report on how newly discovered materials and interfacial processes can be leveraged for a wide range of applications.

In this work, the researchers aim to develop new techniques and materials that can hopefully lead to new treatments for osteoarthritis through tissue engineering. Osteoarthritis is driven by the irreversible degradation of hyaline cartilage in the joints which eventually leads to pain and disability with complete joint replacement being the standard clinical treatment. Using custom designed and 3D printed bioreactors with electrical feedthroughs, they were able to deliver brief daily electrical impulses to cells being cultured on 3D graphene foam.

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A June 4, 2025 Boise State University College of Engineering news release on EurekAlert (also on Graphene-info but published on June 7, 2025), which originated the news item, provides more technical detail,

The researchers discovered that applying direct electrical stimulation to ATDC5 cells adhered to the 3D graphene foam bioscaffolds significantly strengthens their mechanical properties and improves cell growth – key metrics for achieving lab grown cartilage. ATDC5 cells are a murine chondrogenic progenitor cell line well studied as a model for cartilage tissue engineering. Additionally, their specialized setup allowed full submersion of the 3D graphene foam scaffold, enhancing cell attachment and integration within its porous structure – highlighting a promising approach for improving engineered tissues using electrical stimulus through conductive biomaterials.

 “One of the biggest challenges in applying direct electrical stimulation to stem cells is achieving repeatable delivery while monitoring the electrical environment and mapping that back to specific cellular responses,” said Mone’t Sawyer, lead author of the study. “Our system introduces a modular and scalable platform that enables high-throughput, scaffold-coupled electrical stimulation with precise control—opening new possibilities for understanding how electrical cues influence tissue formation.” 

Osteoarthritis ranks as a world-leading cause of pain and disability, currently affecting over 595 million individuals—more than double the 256 million afflicted individuals recorded in 1990. The economic burden is large, with global costs exceeding $460 billion annually, including healthcare expenses, lost productivity, and disability-related costs. In the U.S. alone, OA accounts for $65 billion in direct and indirect costs, with over 1 million joint replacements performed each year to manage severe cases. 

“Mone’t’s work is providing new fundamental insights into the role of materials and electrical stimuli in communicating with stem cells,” said Prof. David Estrada of the Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering. “I believe this work is setting the stage for greater understanding of the human electrobiome, that is, the role of electric charge and transport across different length scales and ultimately in cell fate to tissue function.”

This works was supported by the National Science Foundation through CAREER award #1848516 and the LSAMP Bridge to Doctorate Program under award #1906160. The researchers now plan to test their experimental setup with human stem cells in order to move one step closer to clinical applications.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Direct Scaffold-Coupled Electrical Stimulation of Chondrogenic Progenitor Cells through Graphene Foam Bioscaffolds to Control the Mechanical Properties of Graphene Foam–Cell Composites by Mone’t Sawyer, Amevi Semodji, Olivia Nielson, Attila Rektor, Hailey Burgoyne, Michael Eppel, Josh Eixenberger, Raquel Montenegro-Brown, Miranda L. Nelson, Trevor J. Lujan, David Estrada. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2025, 17, 26, 37404–37420 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c02628 Published May 20, 2025 Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Creative Commons Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 .

This paper is open access.

Researchers from Boise State University have been quite interested in this area of regenerative medicine for some time, e. g., I found this July 8, 2018 news item titled “Graphene foam to potentially offer better treatment for joint diseases and eliminate the need for joint replacement.”

Transforming natural leather and graphene into electronic skin

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I have two stories about electronic skin (e-skin or artificial skin), each featuring a very different approach to developing the technology.

Leather for electronic skin

Michael Berger’s May 28, 2025 Nanowerk Spotlight article provides context for the research into producing artificial (electronic) skin using leather as the base,

Flexible electronics are reshaping how humans interact with machines, creating new possibilities for systems that conform to the body and respond intelligently to physical stimuli. Among the most ambitious goals in this field is the development of electronic skin—e-skin—that replicates the sensory and protective functions of biological tissue.

Real skin does more than just sense touch; it buffers mechanical impacts, regulates temperature, and shields the body from harmful radiation. Replicating all these functions in a single synthetic material has proven technically complex. Most artificial skins focus narrowly on pressure sensing or surface temperature monitoring, often falling short when required to provide mechanical robustness or electromagnetic shielding.

A variety of material systems have been explored in pursuit of a true e-skin, including hydrogels, silicone elastomers, carbon nanotube composites, and layered polymer matrices. While many of these have achieved impressive sensitivity to pressure or temperature, their mechanical fragility, structural instability, or limited responsiveness under stress have restricted their practical use. Some efforts have turned to bio-derived substrates like cellulose or silk. Although lightweight and flexible, these materials are often fragile and lack the structural hierarchy needed for reliable multifunctionality.

Leather—processed animal skin—presents an intriguing alternative. It possesses intrinsic toughness, flexibility, and a multilayered collagen fiber structure that resembles the dermal framework of natural skin. Its use in clothing and protective gear underscores its reliability.

However, until now, efforts to adapt leather for flexible electronics have been hampered by poor structural integration, limited sensitivity under dynamic conditions, and weak electromagnetic shielding. These limitations have prevented leather from advancing beyond a passive substrate into a truly intelligent material capable of emulating skin’s full range of functions.

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Berger’s May 28, 2025 article goes on to describe a new approach to transforming leather into e-skin,

In a study published in Advanced Functional Materials (“Exceed the Traditional Dead Leather to Intelligent E‐Skin”), researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China and Hong Kong Baptist University present a leather-based composite that addresses these limitations. By integrating silver nanostructures and a viscoelastic polymer into natural leather, the team developed a multifunctional e-skin that unites pressure sensing, thermal control, impact protection, and electromagnetic shielding in a single material platform.

This composite, referred to as LAP (Leather/Ag/Polyborosiloxane Elastomer), mirrors the layered anatomy of human skin. The leather forms the outer protective surface, analogous to the epidermis. Embedded within this layer is a hybrid network of silver nanowires and silver flakes. These fill the gaps between collagen fibers, creating a dense, conductive network that functions like the skin’s dermis. The inner layer comprises a polyborosiloxane elastomer—a viscoelastic material that stiffens upon impact, much like the hypodermis’ role in absorbing mechanical shocks.

The conductive layer benefits from the combination of one-dimensional nanowires and two-dimensional flakes. The flakes act as broad conductive platforms while the nanowires link them, forming a three-dimensional network. This arrangement significantly enhances conductivity and mechanical cohesion. The optimal ratio of silver nanowires to flakes—determined to be 1:2—yielded both low resistance and high tensile strength. The material reached a tensile strength of 9.28 MPa at a silver content of 5.0 mg/cm², nearly doubling the strength of the underlying leather-polymer base. Fracture strains of up to 70.8% demonstrate the composite’s flexibility and capacity for wearable use.

…

One of the most distinctive capabilities of the LAP e-skin is its dual-mode sensing response. Under slow compression, the conductive network densifies, reducing resistance and enabling precise piezoresistive sensing. The sensor detected strains as low as 2% with consistent signal output over 500 cycles. Under high-speed impact, however, the network momentarily fractures, increasing resistance instead. This difference allows the material to distinguish between light contact and sudden impacts, a feature that mimics how real skin perceives touch versus pain.

…

This study illustrates how biologically inspired materials can be reengineered to achieve functional integration across sensing, protection, and regulation domains. The choice to reconfigure leather—already optimized by evolution for wearability and toughness—provides a structurally rich and mechanically resilient platform. By layering conductive and responsive components onto this substrate, the researchers have constructed a versatile material that pushes the capabilities of e-skin systems toward those of natural tissue.

…

If you have time, do read Berger’s May 28, 2025 article in its entirety.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the study,

Exceed the Traditional Dead Leather to Intelligent E-Skin by Yue Yao, Ziyang Fan, Xinglong Gong, Danyi Li, Wei Yang, Ken Cham-Fai Leung, Xinyi Wang, Shuai Liu, Junjie Yang, Shouhu Xuan. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202500572 First published online: 24 May 2025

This paper is behind a paywall.

Graphene-based electronic skin

A June 24, 2025 Technical University of Denmark(DTU) press release (also on EurekAlert) announces a ‘graphene forward’ approach, Note: A link has been removed,

Researchers at DTU have made a significant achievement by developing a new kind of electronic material that behaves almost exactly like human skin. That kind of substance could be useful in soft robotics, medicine, and healthcare.

Picture electronic devices that heal the way our skin repairs itself. Researchers at DTU have developed a new material that makes it possible—a flexible, tough and self-healing material that may in future come into use in the healthcare sector, in robotics and much more. This new material overcomes the weaknesses of the rigid, brittle electronic materials currently used, which can’t repair themselves.

By dint of an innovative approach, the scientists at DTU have combined the exceptional properties of graphene, a two-dimensional carbon form that is extremely strong, and has great electrical conductivity, with the see-through polymer PEDOT: PSS, that is also electrically conductive and is, for example, used in flexible electronics and sometimes as transparent electrodes in solar cells. When these two parts are mixed, they turn what’s usually a weak, jellylike material into a solid, flexible, self-healing electronic material.

“The devices that exist today and have self-healing, soft, and responsive properties often fail to seamlessly integrate all these attributes into a single, scalable, and cohesive platform. And that is what I believe we have accomplished,” says Alireza Dolatshahi-Pirouz, Associate Professor at DTU Health Tech and lead author of a recent paper in Advanced Science, detailing their accomplishment: Self‐Maintainable Electronic Materials with Skin‐Like Characteristics Enabled by Graphene‐PEDOT:PSS Fillers.

“Our skin-inspired material is multifunctional, endowed with the desired tactile properties, specifically designed for the usage of electronic devices. This may open the doors to the more advanced and versatile technologies that could more closely mingle with the human body and the surroundings.”

Flexible and self-repairing

Among the most promising attributes of the new material is its ability to self-heal. If it is damaged, it can heal in a matter of seconds, the way the human skin heals after, say, a cut. On top of that, the material is extremely malleable and can be stretched up to six times beyond its original length and still bounce back. This makes it well suited for integration within wearable and soft robotic devices, which require that materials can be moved and bent without diminishing their performance.

It can also control heat and detect a range of environmental factors, such as pressure, temperature and pH levels, which could make it beneficial for health monitoring systems that must keep track of vital signs and adjust to body changes.

Electronics built from this material could therefore be amorphous and shape-changing, capable of adapting to their environment, the researchers say, and able to recover from damage the way biological systems do.

“The fact that the material can self-heal, regulate heat, and monitor vital signs makes it suitable to be used in a large range of equipments, says Alireza Dolatshahi-Pirouz:

“Space suits spring to mind, but I believe that we will find the most relevant uses for the individual citizen within healthcare. We could, for instance, incorporate it in bandages that would monitor how a wound is healing, or in devices that continuously track heart rate and temperature. The stretchable nature of the material makes it ideal for minimally invasive surgery or implantable applications. And we could easily imagine prosthetics that are more comfortable to wear and have better performance.”

At present, the researchers are continuing their work and investigating methods to make it on a larger scale, aimed at setting the stage for real-life applications.

By combining graphene and a polymer blend, DTU researchers have developed a self-healing electronic material that mimics the properties of skin. Illustration: Daniel Müller.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Self-Maintainable Electronic Materials with Skin-Like Characteristics Enabled by Graphene-PEDOT:PSS Fillers by Morteza Alehosseini, Firoz Babu Kadumudi, Sinziana Revesz, Parham Karimi Reikandeh, Jonas Rosager Henriksen, Tiberiu-Gabriel Zsurzsan, Jon Spangenberg, Alireza Dolatshahi-Pirouz. Advanced Science DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202410539 First published online: 25 April 2025

This paper is open access.

What is that old saying, “there’s more than one way to … .”

Walking again? Israeli team gears up to implant bioengineered spinal cord tissue into paralyzed patient

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The Israeli team working on this regenerative medicine project has already (in 2022) been successful with mice. Diana Bletter’s August 21, 2025 Times of Israel article, excerpts of which can be found later in this posting, added some details that I appreciated. That said, the press release is quite accessible and informative.

An August 19, 2025 Tel Aviv University (TAU) press release (also on EurekAlert but edited and published on August 20, 2025) describes the upcoming human trial, Note: Links have been removed,

What if we could restore the ability to walk to people paralyzed by injury or illness? This vision is now moving closer to reality. Three years ago, Tel Aviv University researchers succeeded in engineering a human spinal cord in the lab for the first time. Since then, progress has been rapid, with animal trials showing unprecedented success. Now, for the first time, the technology is set to be tested in human patients.

Prof. Tal Dvir, of TAU’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, head of the Nanotechnology Center, and Chief Scientist of the biotech company Matricelf, explains: “The spinal cord is made up of nerve cells that transmit electrical signals from the brain to every part of the body. When the spinal cord is torn due to trauma — from a car accident, a fall, or a battlefield injury — this chain is broken. Think of it like an electrical cable that’s been cut: if the two parts don’t touch, the electrical signal can’t pass. The cable won’t carry electricity, and in the same way, the person can’t transmit the signal beyond the site of the injury.”

This is one of the few injuries in the human body with no natural ability to regenerate. “Neurons are cells that do not divide and do not renew themselves. They are not like skin cells, which can repair themselves after injury. They are more similar to heart cells: once damage occurs, the body cannot restore them,” notes Prof. Dvir.

 Engineering a Personalized Implant

To overcome this challenge, the TAU researchers developed a fully personalized process. Blood cells are taken from the patient and reprogrammed through genetic engineering to behave like embryonic stem cells, capable of becoming any type of cell in the body.

Meanwhile, fat tissue from the same patient is used to extract substances such as collagen and sugars. These are used to produce a unique hydrogel. “The beauty of this gel is that it’s also personalized, just like the cells. We take the cells that we’ve reprogrammed into embryonic-like stem cells, place them inside the gel, and mimic the embryonic development of the spinal cord,” says Prof. Dvir.

The result is a complete three-dimensional implant. “At the end of the process, we don’t just turn the cells into motor neurons — because cells alone won’t help us — but into three-dimensional tissue: neuronal networks of the spinal cord. After about a month, we obtain a 3D implant with many neurons that transmit electrical signals. These 3D tissues are then implanted into the damaged area.”

Visualization of the next stage of the research – human spinal cord implants for treating paralysis (Photo: Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology)

From Animals to Human Patients

The researchers first tested the implant in lab animals. “We showed that we can treat animals with chronic injuries. Not animals that were injured just recently, but those we allowed enough time to pass — like a person more than a year after an injury. More than 80% of the animals regained full walking ability,” Prof. Dvir explains.

Encouraged by these results, the team submitted the findings to Israel’s Ministry of Health. “About six months ago we received preliminary approval to begin compassionate-use trials with eight patients. We decided, of course, that the first patient would be Israeli. This is undoubtedly a matter of national pride. The technology was developed here in Israel, at Tel Aviv University and at Matricelf, and from the very beginning it was clear to us that the first-ever surgery would be performed in Israel, with an Israeli patient.” he says.

Looking Ahead

The first implant in a human patient is expected within about a year. For the initial trials, the team will focus on patients whose paralysis is relatively recent — within about a year of injury. “Once we prove that the treatment works — everything is open, and we’ll be able to treat any injury,” says Prof. Dvir.

Behind the initiative are key figures from both academia and industry. Prof. Dvir founded Matricelf in 2019 together with Dr. Alon Sinai, based on the revolutionary organ engineering technology developed at TAU under a licensing agreement through Ramot, the University’s technology transfer company. The company’s CEO is Gil Hakim, while the scientific development is led by Dr. Tamar Harel-Adar and her team.

“They managed to get us to the stage of regulatory approvals so quickly — and that’s amazing,” says Prof. Dvir.

Gil Hakim, CEO of Matricelf , concludes: “This milestone marks the shift from pioneering research to patient treatment. For the first time, we are translating years of successful preclinical work into a procedure for people living with paralysis. Our approach, using each patient’s own cells to engineer a new spinal cord, eliminates key safety risks and positions Matricelf at the forefront of regenerative medicine. If successful, this therapy has the potential to define a new standard of care in spinal cord repair, addressing a multi-billion-dollar market with no effective solutions today. This first procedure is more than a scientific breakthrough, it is a value-inflection point for Matricelf and a step toward transforming an area of medicine long considered untreatable. We are proud that Israel is leading this global effort and are fully committed to bringing this innovation to patients worldwide.”

Diana Bletter’s August 21, 2025 article for The Times of Israel (h/t August 21, 2025 Google alert) covers much of the same ground as the press release but there are some new details, Note: Links have been removed,

…

Prof. Tal Dvir, head of the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology and the Nanotechnology Center at Tel Aviv University, said his research team is now able to engineer a spinal cord that functions exactly like a natural one by implanting 3D-engineered tissue into the damaged area.

Fusion then occurs between the new tissue and the healthy areas above and below the injury that will end the paralysis.

…

The upcoming spinal cord implant surgery marks the next stage in a process that began about three years ago, when Dvir’s lab at Tel Aviv University succeeded in engineering a personalized 3D spinal cord in the laboratory.

The groundbreaking findings, published in the prestigious journal Advanced Science, demonstrated for the first time ever that mice suffering from chronic paralysis that were treated with these engineered implants started to walk — and even scamper — again.


The success rate with the engineered spinal cord was 80 percent for mice with chronic paralysis. Among those with recent or short-term paralysis, 100% of the mice walked.

…

Patients remain paralyzed because neurons do not renew

Around the world, there are over 15 million people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. Professionals can help stabilize the injury but not much else.

Dvir said that as a result, the damage only worsens. Over time, the damaged area becomes scar tissue.

“The patient remains paralyzed below the site of injury,” he said. “If the injury is in the neck, all four limbs may be paralyzed. If in the lower back, the legs will not move, and so on.”

Spinal cord injuries are one of the very few injuries in the human body that are not impacted by natural regenerative ability, Dvir explained.

“The neurons do not divide and do not renew themselves,” he said. “These cells are not like skin cells, which can heal after injury, but are more like heart cells: Once damaged, the body cannot repair them.”

“The spinal cord is composed of nerve cells that transmit electrical signals from the brain to all parts of the body,” Dvir said. “The decision is made in the brain, the electrical signal passes through the spinal cord, and from there, neurons activate the muscles throughout the body.”

When the spinal cord is severed due to trauma, such as a car accident, a fall, or a combat injury, this chain is broken.

“Think of an electrical cable that has been cut,” Dvir said. “When the two ends no longer touch, the electrical signal cannot pass. The cable will not transmit electricity, and the person cannot transmit the signal beyond the injury.”

Dvir’s team aims to fix that.

Implanting an engineered human spinal cord

Dvir said that the researchers start the process with a small biopsy from the belly.

They then take these blood cells and perform a process known as reprogramming — genetic engineering that transforms the cells into embryonic stem cell-like cells, capable of developing into any cell type in the body.

In the next step, the scientists take fatty tissue from the patient, extract key components such as collagens and sugars, and build a customized hydrogel. The embryonic stem cell-like cells are placed in this gel, and the embryonic development of a spinal cord is mimicked.

This spinal cord will then be transplanted into the human body, restoring the body’s abilities.

…

I have a link to Dvir’s company, Matricelf and a link to and a citation to the Dvir team’s 2022 study,

Regenerating the Injured Spinal Cord at the Chronic Phase by Engineered iPSCs-Derived 3D Neuronal Networks by Lior Wertheim, Reuven Edri, Yona Goldshmit, Tomer Kagan, Nadav Noor, Angela Ruban, Assaf Shapira, Irit Gat-Viks, Yaniv Assaf, Tal Dvir. Advanced Science Volume9, Issue 11 April 14, 2022 2105694 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202105694 First published online: 07 February 2022

This paper is open access.

One more note, there is other work devoted to enable paralyzed people to walk again such as the Walk Again Project (Wikipedia entry), Note: Links have been removed,

Walk Again Project is an international, non-profit consortium led by Miguel Nicolelis, created in 2009 in a partnership between Duke University and the IINN/ELS [International Institute for Neurosciences of Natal – Edmond and Lily Safra or Instituto Internacional de Neurociências Edmond e Lily Safra; (INN-ELS)], where researchers come together to find neuro-rehabilitation treatments for spinal cord injuries,[1][2][3] which pioneered the development and use of the brain–machine interface, including its non-invasive version,[4] with an EEG.[5]

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My May 15, 2019 posting “Walking again with exoskeletons and brain-controlled, non-invasive muscle stimulation enabling people to walk” features more information about the Walk Again Project (scroll down to the ‘Brazil and Walk Again” subhead and a Canadian project (Note: The CBC has removed access to a video that I’d embedded in the posting.)

I wish all the best for everyone involved in the upcoming human trial.

First-of-its-kind eyedrops use synthetic nanoparticles to help eye regenerate cells

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Northwestern Medicine investigators have developed first-of-its-kind eyedrops that use synthetic nanoparticles to help the eye regenerate cells that have been damaged by mustard keratopathy, or exposure to mustard gas, and other inflammatory eye diseases. Image by Mark E. Seniw Courtesy: Northwestern University

A May 11, 2025 news item on statnano.com announces a regenerative medicine story focused on healing damaged corneas, Note: A link has been removed,

Northwestern Medicine investigators have developed first-of-its-kind eyedrops that use synthetic nanoparticles to help the eye regenerate cells that have been damaged by mustard keratopathy, or exposure to mustard gas, and other inflammatory eye diseases, detailed in a recent study published in the journal NPJ Regenerative Medicine.

Limbal epithelial stem cells are responsible for maintaining and regenerating the cornea’s epithelium, the outermost layer of the cornea. The loss or dysfunction of these cells can lead to limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD), which can in turn cause persistent breakdown of the corneal epithelium and, eventually, blindness.

The disorder can be caused by genetic mutations but also chronic inflammation and severe external injuries, including the exposure to sulfur mustard or mustard gas, which has been historically used during wartime.

Topical corticosteroids have commonly been used to treat inflammation preceding LCSD. However, adverse side effects from long-term steroid use can occur and often steroids do not promote wound repair.

In response to an urgent need for new targeted therapies, investigators created novel restoring eyedrops containing synthetic lipoprotein nanoparticles developed in Thaxton’s [Shad Thaxton, professor of Urology] laboratory.

…

A May 7, 2025 Northwestern University news release (available on the university’s Feinberg News Center site and on the university’s Center for Regenerative Medicine news site) by Melissa Rohman, which originated the news item, provides more details, Note: Links have been removed,

These nanoparticles were designed to mimic some properties of a specific type of lipoprotein called high-density lipoproteins (HDLs), which are naturally found in the bloodstream and can help the body regulate many functions, including inflammation.  

“By taking a page out of nature’s playbook, we could begin to synthesize these types of materials and be able to control their sizes, shapes and compositions so that we can take advantage of some of their most beneficial properties such as reducing inflammation,” said Thaxton, an associate professor of Urology at Northwestern and co-senior author of the study.

“The therapeutic possibilities of these materials are tremendous as they can also be programmed to carry a broad range of active drugs that work synergistically with the native wound-healing ability of the HDL nanoparticles,” said SonBinh Nguyen, professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and co-senior author of the study.

The investigators then administered the eyedrops to mice with different phases of nitrogen mustard cornea injury, an experimental model developed by Han Peng, associate professor of Dermatology and co-senior author of the study. Mice with acute inflammation received eyedrops daily for three days and mice with chronic, long-term injury received eyedrops daily for 14 days.

Using advanced imaging techniques and PCR analysis, the scientists discovered the eyedrops not only reduced inflammation in the eyes of the mice but also restored damaged limbal epithelium, which enabled the cornea to essentially heal itself and recover.

“This is the first time that this type of reversal of LSCD has been shown,” said Robert Lavker, Professor Emeritus of Dermatology and co-senior author of the study.

The findings demonstrate how the novel eyedrops could be a promising treatment not only for mustard keratopathy but also for other inflammatory corneal diseases, such as bacterial keratitis, alkali burns and dry eye.

“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a topical therapy that can resolve ocular inflammation, conjunctivalization and corneal stromal neovascularization. With the myriad of diseases having a component of LSCD, we believe that the nanoparticles have broad therapeutic potential,” the authors wrote.

Timothy Feliciano, an MD/PhD student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), and Elif Kayaalp Nalbant, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Dermatology, were co-first authors of the study.

Co-authors include Jacquelyn Trujillo, also an MSTP student, and Kurt Lu, the Eugene and Gloria Bauer Professor of Dermatology.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health Chemical Countermeasures Research Program executed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director under award number U54AR079795; and National Institutes of Health grant EY019463, EY032922, EY028560, EY036320, T32GM008152 and F31AR081685.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A novel therapy to ameliorate nitrogen mustard-induced limbal stem cell deficiency using lipoprotein-like nanoparticles by Elif Kayaalp Nalbant, Timothy J. Feliciano, Aliakbar Mohammadlou, Vincent L. Xiong, Jacquelyn E. Trujillo, Andrea E. Calvert, Nihal Kaplan, Parisa Foroozandeh, Jayden Kim, Emma M. Bai, Xiaolin Qi, Fernando Tobias, Eric W. Roth, Vinayak P. Dravid, Kurt Q. Lu, SonBinh T. Nguyen, C. Shad Thaxton, Han Peng & Robert M. Lavker. j Regenerative Medicine volume 10, Article number: 14 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41536-025-00402-5 Published: 20 March 2025

This paper is open access.

Golden eyes (not a James Bond movie): how gold nanoparticles may one day help to restore people’s vision

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Caption: In a study published in the journal ACS Nano and supported by the National Institutes of Health, the research team showed that nanoparticles injected into the retina can successfully stimulate the visual system and restore vision in mice with retinal disorders. The findings suggest that a new type of visual prosthesis system in which nanoparticles, used in combination with a small laser device worn in a pair of glasses or goggles, might one day help people with retinal disorders to see again. Credit: Jiarui Nie / Brown University

An April 16, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily announces work on a retinal prosthesis that in the future could restore vision,

A new study by Brown University researchers suggests that gold nanoparticles — microscopic bits of gold thousands of times thinner than a human hair — might one day be used to help restore vision in people with macular degeneration and other retinal disorders.

In a study published in the journal ACS [American Chemical Society] Nano and supported by the [US] National Institutes of Health, the research team showed that nanoparticles injected into the retina can successfully stimulate the visual system and restore vision in mice with retinal disorders. The findings suggest that a new type of visual prosthesis system in which nanoparticles, used in combination with a small laser device worn in a pair of glasses or goggles, might one day help people with retinal disorders to see again.

…

An April 16, 2025 Brown University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more technical detail about research into a retinal prosthetic that is not require a brain implant or genetic modification, Note: Links have been removed,

“This is a new type of retinal prosthesis that has the potential to restore vision lost to retinal degeneration without requiring any kind of complicated surgery or genetic modification,” said Jiarui Nie, a postdoctoral researcher at the [US] National Institutes of Health who led the research while completing her Ph.D. at Brown. “We believe this technique could potentially transform treatment paradigms for retinal degenerative conditions.” 

Nie performed the work while working in the lab of Jonghwan Lee, an associate professor in Brown’s School of Engineering and a faculty affiliate at Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science, who oversaw the work and served as the study’s senior author. 

Retinal disorders like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa affect millions of people in the U.S. and around the world. These conditions damage light-sensitive cells in the retina called photoreceptors — the “rods” and “cones” that convert light into tiny electric pulses. Those pulses stimulate other types of cells further up the visual chain called bipolar and ganglion cells, which process the photoreceptor signals and send them along to the brain. 

This new approach uses nanoparticles injected directly into the retina to bypass damaged photoreceptors. When infrared light is focused on the nanoparticles, they generate a tiny amount of heat that activates bipolar and ganglion cells in much the same way that photoreceptor pulses do. Because disorders like macular degeneration affect mostly photoreceptors while leaving bipolar and ganglion cells intact, the strategy has the potential to restore lost vision. 

In this new study, the research team tested the nanoparticle approach in mouse retinas and in living mice with retinal disorders. After injecting a liquid nanoparticle solution, the researchers used patterned near-infrared laser light to project shapes onto the retinas. Using a calcium signal to detect cellular activity, the team confirmed that the nanoparticles were exciting bipolar and ganglion cells in patterns matched the shapes projected by the laser.

The experiments showed that neither the nanoparticle solution nor the laser stimulation caused detectable adverse side effects, as indicated by metabolic markers for inflammation and toxicity. Using probes, the researchers confirmed that laser stimulation of the nanoparticles caused increased activity in the visual cortices of the mice — an indication that previously absent visual signals were being transmitted and processed by the brain. That, the researchers say, is a sign that vision had been at least partially restored, a good sign for potentially translating a similar technology to humans. 

For human use, the researchers envision a system that combines the nanoparticles with a laser system mounted in a pair of glasses or goggles. Cameras in the goggles would gather image data from the outside world and use it to drive the patterning of an infrared laser. The laser pulses would then stimulate the nanoparticles in people’s retinas, enabling them to see. 

The approach is similar to one that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human use a few years ago. The older approach combined a camera system with a small electrode array that was surgically implanted in the eye. The nanoparticle approach has several key advantages, according to Nie.

For starters, it’s far less invasive. As opposed to surgery, “an intravitreal injection is one of the simplest procedures in ophthalmology,” Nie said. 

There are functional advantages as well. The resolution of the previous approach was limited by the size of the electrode array — about 60 square pixels. Because the nanoparticle solution covers the whole retina, the new approach could potentially cover someone’s full field of vision. And because the nanoparticles respond to near-infrared light as opposed to visual light, the system doesn’t necessarily interfere with any residual vision a person may retain.   

More work needs to be done before the approach can be tried in a clinical setting, Nie said, but this early research suggests that it’s possible.

“We showed that the nanoparticles can stay in the retina for months with no major toxicity,” Nie said of the research. “And we showed that they can successfully stimulate the visual system. That’s very encouraging for future applications.”

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute (R01EY030569), the China Scholarship Council scholarship, the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission scholarship, and South Korea’s Alchemist Project Program (RS-2024-00422269). Co-authors also include Professor Kyungsik Eom from Pusan National University, Brown Professor Tao Lui, [? See citation below] as well as Brown students Hafithe M. Al Ghosain, Alexander Neifert, Aaron Cherian, Gaia Marie Gerbaka, and Kristine Y. Ma.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Intravitreally Injected Plasmonic Nanorods Activate Bipolar Cells with Patterned Near-Infrared Laser Projection by Jiarui Nie, Kyungsik Eom, Hafithe M. AlGhosain, Alexander Neifert, Aaron Cherian, Gaia Marie Gerbaka, Kristine Y. Ma, Tao Liu, Jonghwan Lee. ACS Nano 2025, 19, 12, 11823–11840 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c14061 Published: March 20, 2025 Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Pioneering bionic hand achieves human-like grip on plush toys, water bottles, and other everyday objects

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This is not a biohybrid hand incorporating ‘living’ and nonliving materials but a hybrid hand incorporating soft and rigid robotics.

A March 5, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces work from Johns Hopkins University (JHU; Maryland, US),

Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a pioneering prosthetic hand that can grip plush toys, water bottles, and other everyday objects like a human, carefully conforming and adjusting its grasp to avoid damaging or mishandling whatever it holds.

The system’s hybrid design is a first for robotic hands, which have typically been too rigid or too soft to replicate a human’s touch when handling objects of varying textures and materials. The innovation offers a promising solution for people with hand loss and could improve how robotic arms interact with their environment.

…

A March 5, 2025 Johns Hopkins University (JHU) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more details, Note: Links have been removed,

…

“The goal from the beginning has been to create a prosthetic hand that we model based on the human hand’s physical and sensing capabilities—a more natural prosthetic that functions and feels like a lost limb,” said Sriramana Sankar, a Johns Hopkins biomedical engineer who led the work. “We want to give people with upper-limb loss the ability to safely and freely interact with their environment, to feel and hold their loved ones without concern of hurting them.”

The device, developed by the same Neuroengineering and Biomedical Instrumentations Lab that in 2018 created the world’s first electronic “skin” with a humanlike sense of pain [mentioned here in a December 14, 2018 posting], features a multifinger system with rubberlike polymers and a rigid 3D-printed internal skeleton. Its three layers of tactile sensors, inspired by the layers of human skin, allow it to grasp and distinguish objects of various shapes and surface textures, rather than just detect touch. Each of its soft air-filled finger joints can be controlled with the forearm’s muscles, and machine learning algorithms focus the signals from the artificial touch receptors to create a realistic sense of touch, Sankar said. “The sensory information from its fingers is translated into the language of nerves to provide naturalistic sensory feedback through electrical nerve stimulation.”

In the lab, the hand identified and manipulated 15 everyday objects, including delicate stuffed toys, dish sponges, and cardboard boxes, as well as pineapples, metal water bottles, and other sturdier items. In the experiments, the device achieved the best performance compared with the alternatives, successfully handling objects with 99.69% accuracy and adjusting its grip as needed to prevent mishaps. The best example was when it nimbly picked up a thin, fragile plastic cup filled with water, using only three fingers without denting it.

“We’re combining the strengths of both rigid and soft robotics to mimic the human hand,” Sankar said. “The human hand isn’t completely rigid or purely soft—it’s a hybrid system, with bones, soft joints, and tissue working together. That’s what we want our prosthetic hand to achieve. This is new territory for robotics and prosthetics, which haven’t fully embraced this hybrid technology before. It’s being able to give a firm handshake or pick up a soft object without fear of crushing it.”

To help amputees regain the ability to feel objects while grasping, prostheses will need three key components: sensors to detect the environment, a system to translate that data into nerve-like signals, and a way to stimulate nerves so the person can feel the sensation, said Nitish Thakor, a Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering professor who directed the work.

The bioinspired technology allows the hand to function this way, using muscle signals from the forearm, like most hand prostheses. These signals bridge the brain and nerves, allowing the hand to flex, release, or react based on its sense of touch. The result is a robotic hand that intuitively “knows” what it’s touching, much like the nervous system does, Thakor said.

“If you’re holding a cup of coffee, how do you know you’re about to drop it? Your palm and fingertips send signals to your brain that the cup is slipping,” Thakor said. “Our system is neurally inspired—it models the hand’s touch receptors to produce nervelike messages so the prosthetics’ ‘brain,’ or its computer, understands if something is hot or cold, soft or hard, or slipping from the grip.”

While the research is an early breakthrough for hybrid robotic technology that could transform both prosthetics and robotics, more work is needed to refine the system, Thakor said. Future improvements could include stronger grip forces, additional sensors, and industrial-grade materials.

“This hybrid dexterity isn’t just essential for next-generation prostheses,” Thakor said. “It’s what the robotic hands of the future need because they won’t just be handling large, heavy objects. They’ll need to work with delicate materials such as glass, fabric, or soft toys. That’s why a hybrid robot, designed like the human hand, is so valuable—it combines soft and rigid structures, just like our skin, tissue, and bones.” 

Other authors include Wen-Yu Cheng of Florida Atlantic University; Jinghua Zhang, Ariel Slepyan, Mark M. Iskarous, Rebecca J. Greene, Rene DeBrabander, and Junjun Chen of Johns Hopkins; and Arnav Gupta of the University of Illinois Chicago.

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Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A natural biomimetic prosthetic hand with neuromorphic tactile sensing for precise and compliant grasping by Sriramana Sankar, Wen-Yu Cheng, Jinghua Zhang, Ariel Slepyan, Mark M. Iskarous, Rebecca J. Greene, Rene DeBrabander, Junjun Chen, Arnav Gupta, and Nitish V. Thakor. Science Advances 5 Mar 2025 Vol 11, Issue 10 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr9300

This paper is open access.