According to MIT, miniature wireless 'antennas' have the potential to facilitate high-resolution biosensing.

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Researchers at MIT have recently unveiled a new method for achieving high-resolution biosensing without the need for wires.

In a paper published Dec. 20, 2024 in the journal Science Advances, the researchers described organic electro-scattering antennas (OCEANs) for wireless, light-based probing of cellular electrical signals. They said the “antennas” could provide micrometer spatial resolution, potentially from thousands of sites, during in vitro studies.

The following phase, however, involves evaluating their optical sensing arrays using real cell cultures cultivated on the surface.

“Being able to record the electrical activity of cells with high throughput and high resolution remains a real problem. We need to try some innovative ideas and alternate approaches,”  Benoît Desbiolles, a former postdoc in the MIT Media Lab and lead author of a paper on the devices, said in an MIT news release.

According to a news release from MIT, traditional devices that capture electrical signals in cell cultures and other liquid settings have been constrained by the use of wires, limiting the deployment of sensors. In contrast, researchers at MIT have developed antennas that are merely 1 micrometer wide—about one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair. These innovative antennas leverage the properties of the polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), which can either attract or repel positive ions from the liquid environment in response to nearby electrical activity. This interaction leads to alterations in the polymer's chemical configuration and electronic structure, which in turn modifies its refractive index and affects how it scatters light.

Illuminating the antenna alters the light intensity in relation to the electrical signal produced by the liquid. According to researchers from MIT, this allows scientists to util