Melanin is an electrically conductive and biocompatible material, because their conjugated backbone structures provide conducting pathways from human skin, eyes, brain, and beyond. So there is a potential of using as materials for the neural interfaces and the implantable devices. Extracted from Sepia officinalis ink, our natural melanin was uniformly dispersed in mostly polar solvents such as water and alcohols. Then, the dispersed melanin was further fabricated to nano-thin layered composites by the layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly technique. Combined with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), the melanin nanoparticles behave as an LBL counterpart to from finely tuned nanostructured films. The LBL process can adjust the smart performances of the composites by varying the layering conditions and sandwich thickness. We further demonstrated the melanin loading degree of stacked layers, combination nanostructures, electrical properties, and biocompatibility of the resulting composites by UV-vis spectrophotometer, scanning electron microscope (SEM), multimeter, and in-vitro cell test of PC12, respectively.
Electrogenetic tissues in human body such as central and peripheral nerve systems, muscular and cardiomuscular
systems are soft and stretchable materials. However, most of the artificial materials, interfacing with those conductive
tissues, such as neural electrodes and cardiac pacemakers, have stiff mechanical properties. The rather contradictory
properties between natural and artificial materials usually cause critical incompatibility problems in implanting bodymachine
interfaces for wide ranges of biomedical devices. Thus, we developed a stretchable and electrically conductive
material with complex hierarchical structures; multi-scale microstructures and nanostructural electrical pathways. For
biomedical purposes, an implantable polycaprolactone (PCL) membrane was coated by molecularly controlled layer-bylayer
(LBL) assembly of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) or poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT). The
soft PCL membrane with asymmetric micro- and nano-pores provides elastic properties, while conductive SWNT or
PEDOT coating preserves stable electrical conductivity even in a fully stretched state. This electrical conductivity
enhanced ionic cell transmission and cell-to-cell interactions as well as electrical cellular stimulation on the membrane.
Our novel stretchable conducting materials will overcome long-lasting challenges for bioelectronic applications by
significantly reducing mechanical property gaps between tissues and artificial materials and by providing 3D
interconnected electro-active pathways which can be available even at a fully stretched state.
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