Electrical Recording from Cardiac Cells and Tissue Using Nanowire Transistors

Nanowire fi eld-effect transistors (NWFETs) represent diverse and powerful nanostructures for building nanoscale bioelectronic interfaces with cells and tissue. NWFETs exhibit exquisite sensitivity in chemical and biological detection and can form strongly coupled interfaces with cell membranes. We present a general scheme to assemble NWFETs with rationally designed composition and device geometry on inorganic and biocompatible fl exible plastic surfaces. These devices can be used to measure extracellular and intracellular signals from heart tissue and cardiomyocytes. The measured extracellular signals are in millivoltrange, which are equal to or substantially greater than those1School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA; E-mail: tzahi@cml.harvard.edu 2Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, and Department of Anesthesiology, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA; E-mail: tianbz@cml.harvard.edu 3Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA; E-mail: cml@cml.harvard.edu *Corresponding authorList of abbreviations after the text.