Phase III – Stealth Is.

Transistors are the fundamental building blocks of electronic gadgets, so finding ways to control them with biological signals could provide a route towards integrating electronics with the body.

Aleksandr Noy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and colleagues chose to control their transistor with adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the molecular fuel found in nearly all living cells.

The new transistor is made up of a carbon nanotube, which behaves as a semiconductor, bridging the gap between two metal electrodes and coated with an insulating polymer layer that leaves the middle section of the nanotube exposed. The entire device is then coated again, this time with a lipid bi-layer similar to those that form the membranes surrounding our body’s cells.

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