Bioelectricity

Scope

All living things, animals and plants, even single-cell organisms, depend on their intrinsic electrical properties to function and to survive. The field of bioelectricity was borne from work on so-called ‘excitable cells’ (nerves and muscles) and it is now accepted that every biological cell has electrical properties which are essential for their normal functioning and homeostatic balance. Consequently, abnormalities in cellular bioelectricity are disruptive and can lead to serious disease. Furthermore, living things respond to external electric fields and a huge range of applications can exploit the body’s electricity in medicine, biomedicine and in industry including those related to food and environment. Large magnitude external electric fields can be applied to manipulate proteins and/or membrane structures in living cells (e.g. membrane electroporation/electropermeabilization, electrotransfer or pulse electric fields). These fields may profoundly modify the cell physiology and can be utilized for multiple applications affecting microbial, animal and plant cells.