In Situ Assembly of Organic Bioelectronics for Modulating Ionic Currents and Redox Processes in the Brain

The challenges facing healthcare systems worldwide are well documented. Novel treatments are rarely discovered.

All the major neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease and  Parkinson’s disease) and brain cancers (e.g., glioblastoma) have shown a devilish ability to evade any attempt to slow down or halt their progression significantly.

Thus, new and innovative drug discovery strategies are in demand, as the classic ones are progressively approaching a standstill or failing completely.As alternative therapeutics, the pharmaceutical industry has started to explore a new set of larger chemical entities referred to as “New Modalities.” However, New Modalities, like traditional pharmaceuticals and biologics, have, to date, solely addressed biochemical signaling.

Many diseases involve both biochemical and electrical processes, and recent findings indicate an intimate coupling between electrical signaling, induction, and the progression of neurodegenerative diseases and cancers.We plan to develop a new class of New Modalities to treat diseases using ionic currents, redox processes, or both.

The building blocks that self-assemble into a transient conductive polymer are biocompatible and significantly smaller than traditional New Modalities, indicating drug-likeness.

The liquid nature of the conductive structure suggests that it can be implanted using minimally invasive methods, seamlessly integrated into the nervous system, and extensively distributed in a tumor.