Organic Bioelectronics for In Vitro Systems.

Bioelectronics have made strides in improving clinical diagnostics and precision medicine. The potential of bioelectronics for bidirectional interfacing with biology through continuous, label-free monitoring on one side and precise control of biological activity on the other has extended their application scope to in vitro systems. The advent of microfluidics and the considerable advances in reliability and complexity of in vitro models promise to eventually significantly reduce or replace animal studies, currently the gold standard in drug discovery and toxicology testing. Bioelectronics are anticipated to play a major role in this transition offering a much needed technology to push forward the drug discovery paradigm. Organic electronic materials, notably conjugated polymers, having demonstrated technological maturity in fields such as solar cells and light emitting diodes given their outstanding characteristics and versatility in processing, are the obvious route forward for bioelectronics due to their biomimetic nature, among other merits. This review highlights the advances in conjugated polymers for interfacing with biological tissue in vitro, aiming ultimately to develop next generation in vitro systems. We showcase in vitro interfacing across multiple length scales, involving biological models of varying complexity, from cell components to complex 3D cell cultures. The state of the art, the possibilities, and the challenges of conjugated polymers toward clinical translation of in vitro systems are also discussed throughout.R.O. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 723951). A.M.P. acknowledges funding from the Oppenheimer Junior Research Fellowship and the Maudslay-Butler Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge. DvN is funded by the W.D Armstrong Trust Fund and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. Y.F and D.I were funded by the European Space Agency project BONUS. J.S acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant, ICE METs (No. 842356). A.J.B. acknowledges support from his Cross-disciplinary Fellowship (Grant No. LT000034/2020-C) from the Human Frontier Science Program Organization. A.S. acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant, MultiStem (No. 895801)