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Artificial cells

Designing biomimetic nanomachines

Nature Nanotechnology volume 3, pages 647–648 (2008)Cite this article

A new mathematical approach could lead to a better understanding of how events at the cellular level are related to the way the body functions.

Designing machinery that can reproduce the functions of biological cells is difficult because the microscopic details of these organisms are complex and not completely understood. On page 666 of this issue, Jian Xu of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and David LaVan of Yale University report a mathematical model1 that can relate the microscopic structure of certain cells in electric eels to the eels' ability to generate enough electrical energy to stun their prey. On the basis of a set of optimized parameters from the model, Xu and LaVan propose a design for an efficient and biocompatible 'artificial cell' that could potentially power medical implants and other tiny biomedical devices.

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References

  1. Xu, J. & LaVan, D. Nature Nanotech. 3, 666–670 (2008).

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  2. Hille, B. Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes 3rd edn (Sinauer Associates, 2001).

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  3. Southern, J. et al. Prog. Biophys. Mol. Biol. 96, 60–89 (2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marco Saraniti is in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA. marco.saraniti@asu.edu,

    Marco Saraniti

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  1. Marco Saraniti
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Saraniti, M. Designing biomimetic nanomachines. Nature Nanotech 3, 647–648 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.327

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.327

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