Organic Bioelectronics for Real Time Monitoring and Dynamic Regulation of Plant Physiology

The development of bioelectronic technologies is driven by biomedical applications for new therapeutic and diagnostic tools. However, there are many important questions in plant biology that remain unanswered due to lack of sophisticate tools. Furthermore, the climate change and growing population calls for plants with increased tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and plants with higher productivity. In my group we are developing organic bioelectronic technologies for sensing and actuation in plants that overcome limitations of conventional methods used in plant science. In my talk I will present our recent advancements of interfacing bioelectronic tools with plant model systems. We demonstrate enchanced plant resistance to drought via electronically controlled delivery of biomolecules with the organic electronic ion pump. Furthermore, with OECT implantable sensors we reveal previously uncharacterized sugars dynamics in trees and finally we present a novel bioelectronic platforms for stimulation of plant growth. Our results highlight the potential of bioelectronics in elucidating and enhancing plant processes but also for their application in agriculture.