Biomembranes on Chip—Nanomechanical-Alchemy of Dissecting Cells into Nanovesicles and Crafting Confluent Membrane Bilayers on Planar Surfaces for Studying Membrane Events

Despite their significance, cell membranes are still an underexplored target for studying the mechanisms of diseases or drug therapies. Cell-free commercially available technologies for cell membrane studies have been limited to synthetic membranes that lack the inherent complexity found in the membrane of the cell. A recent example of a bio-integrated electronic device, the BiOET, is based on polymeric semiconductor technology and is fabricated using nano/micro-fabrication methods in conjunction with synthetic biology approaches to incorporate hierarchically organized biological models of the cell membrane. In this talk I will describe a new method to create native cell membranes, using vesicles derived from live cells, on top of conducting polymer- based microfabricated electrodes. The activity of transmembrane proteins or the degree of lipid packing in response to different stimuli can be electrically monitored, offering a direct means to characterize biological events i.e., drug toxicity or potency at the critical first contact point: membrane interaction.