Title: Nanotechnology-Enabled
Neural Stimulation
일시: 2021년 5월 25일 오후 5시
Speaker: 이재현
Abstract:
Nanotechnology
has been served as a platform technology in various field of researches,
especially enabling interfacial sciences between nanoscale materials and
biological systems. This talk introduces a new nanotool as an enabling
technology, designed for neuromodulation for in vivo animal studies. The tool
is named as magnetic torque generator (m-Torquer), based magnetic nanomaterials
that mimics the magnetoreception in nature. Use of the m-Torquer enables
generation of mechanical torque force remotely at a long distance ever
demonstrated in a lab scale. The magnetomechanical force works as physical
stimuli to activate mechanotransduction systems in biology. As an example, a
mechanosensitive ion channel, Piezo1, was genetically encoded to the target
cells, especially neurons, which was later activated mechanically by the
m-Torquer for the effective neuromodulation. This magnetogenetic approach is
comparable to optogenetics in terms of using physical stimuli to control
neuronal behaviors with additional benefits of wireless and remote
controllability, enabling easy translation to animal studies. The utilization
of m-Torquer is not limited to neuromodulation but extended to versatile
biosystems to control cell signaling pathways in genetic and protein levels to
change the functions of cells.