National Center for Design of
Biomimetic Nanoconductors

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Options for the BioBattery

The figure above shows a schematic of an implantable system. This diagram shows three approaches that will be explored to assemble groups of transporters to build system-level functionality for the production of power.

• The first approach (part (A) in the figure) is to use a lipid membrane supported on a porous material that serves primarily as a mechanical support. This membrane could be nanoporous silica, other thin film materials produced by micromachining, or a free standing membrane such as nafion or a nucleopore filter. For all of the approaches using lipids, the lipid layer can be stabilized by cross-linking (Subramaniam, Alves et al. 2005) to improve stability if necessary; this approach has shown it is robust enough to stabilize liposomes for intestinal drug delivery (Chen, Torchilin et al. 1997). Synthetic alternatives to lipids such as A-B-A block copolymers (Ho, Chu et al. 2004) will also be explored if stability becomes an issue. Lipid layers have also been stabilized by isolating them from large molecules with gel layers (Costello, Peterson et al. 1998) which could have a negative impact on ion transport rates. Transporters will be inserted into the membrane using a vesicle fusion technique or be directing the assembly using antibodies or magnetic nanoparticles/nanorods which can be aligned with magnetic field gradients.
• The second approach (part (B) in the figure) is to use a membrane with large pores that would permit the assembly or groups of transporters in a modular format -- using either micropositioners or microfluidics to provide spatial control of the assembly process.
• The final approach (part (C) in the figure) for the development of the biobattery is the utilization of a decorated nanoporous material without the use of natural transport proteins or lipid layers.

The National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors is funded by Grant Number PHS 2 PN2 EY016570B from the National Institutes of Health through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research and is based at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Partner institutions include Yale University, University of Southern California, University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Sandia National Laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory, Oxford University, Wabash College, University of California, Davis, nanoHUB at Purdue University, and the University of New Mexico.