Major breakthroughs in the field of biophotonics, genomics, and stem cell biology are enabling the control of
biological processes through light. By incorporating light-actuated and light-emitting proteins into cells, key
biological processes at the single-cell level can be controlled in real-time. In parallel to such developments,
nanotechnology is providing the engineering community with a new set of tools to create novel nanoscale
devices with unprecedented functionalities. These include, among others, plasmonic nano-lasers with sub-
micrometric footprint, plasmonic nano-antennas able to confine light in nanometric structures, or single-
photon detectors with unrivaled sensitivity, which can be combined to create novel optical nano-sensors and
nano-actuators. Together, networks of nano-actuators and nano-sensors can control and monitor biological
processes at the sub-cellular level with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. The resulting light-
mediated nano-bio-interfaces enable new unique applications, ranging from new tools to study, understand
and enhance the recovery from developmental and neurodegenerative diseases to novel brain-machine
interfaces and other technologies targeted at enriching human-machine interaction. In this talk, the
fundamentals and the experimental state of the art and future research directions for wireless nano-bio
communication networks enabled by optogenomics will be presented. Optogenomic interfaces are light-
mediated nano-bio-interfaces that allow the control and monitoring of the genome and, thus, of all the cell
functionalities, with (sub) cellular resolution and high temporal accuracy. The biological principles of cell
development and function and, in particular, the role of the FGFR1 gene will be described. Then, the state-
of-the-art in optical nano-devices will be summarized. Experimental results demonstrating the feasibility to
optically actuating the expression of FGFR1 and, thus, the genome, will be presented. Future steps towards
moving the fundamental in-vitro lab to in-vivo testing and, ultimately, deployment in humans, will be discussed
while highlighting the role of wireless communication engineers in this truly transformative research
paradigm.
Speaker(s): JOSEP,
Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/323531
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