Ultrathin rubbery bio-optoelectronic stimulators for untethered cardiac stimulation

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adq5061
• Publication Date: 2024-12-06T18:58:44Z
• Authors: Zhoulyu Rao; Faheem Ershad; Ying-Shi Guan; Fernanda C. Pacco...; Ernesto Curty da ...; Marco A. Morales-...; Angel Moctezuma-R...; Bin Kan; Yuntao Lu; Shubham Patel; Hyunseok Shim; Kuan Cheng; Wenjie Wu; Tahir Haideri; Xiaojun Lance Lian; Alamgir Karim; Jian Yang; Abdelmotagaly Elg...; Camila Hochman-Me...; Cunjiang Yu
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; Physical and Materials Sciences

Untethered electrical stimulation or pacing of the heart is critical importance in addressing pressing needs cardiovascular diseases both clinical therapies and fundamental studies. Among various methods, light illumination–induced via photoelectric effect without any genetic modifications to beating cells/tissues whole has profound benefits. However, a bottleneck lies lack suitable material with tissue-like mechanical softness deformability sufficient optoelectronic performances toward effective stimulation. Here, we introduce an ultrathin (<500 nm), stretchy, self-adhesive rubbery bio-optoelectronic stimulator (RBOES) bilayer construct semiconducting nanofilm transparent, stretchable gold nanomesh conductor. The RBOES could maintain its performance when it was stretched by 20%. validated effectively accelerate human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, acceleration ex vivo perfused rat hearts self-adhered achieved repetitive pulsed illumination.