Bio-Dielectrics: Old wine in a new bottle?

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries of temperature and touch receptor Piezo 1 and Piezo 2 proteins brings to fore the importance of studying dielectric nature of biological building blocks such as amino acids, peptides, proteins and tissues. In fact, interests in biodielectrics have exploded over the last century, especially in the second half since the discovery of piezoelectricity in the hierarchical biological structures such as wood and bone by E. Fukada in the 1950s. The patch clamp technique, for which Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann received in 1991 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, elucidates “the function of single ion channels in cells” and many physiological processes and medicinal discoveries. Piezoelectricity in intervertebral discs were found to be significant enough to impact the functioning of ion channels. The convergence of these, heretofore, two parallel streams of activities may lead to significant progress in understanding, regulating and stimulating physiological activities. Here we provide an overview of how these two fields have common origin in the polar dielectric properties of biological building blocks on the basis of proven or suspected piezo, pyro and ferroelectricity. The approach is similar to those taken by Høber (1911) in showing the existence of cell membranes, which showed exponential relaxation similar to a RC circuit Debye (1913) and Cole’s (1928) permittivity and impedance measurements on living cell suspensions, tissue and nerves. We argue that these measurements should be carried out at the level of fundamental building blocks rather than at the top of the biological hierarchical structure. Recent progress made in our group will be also discussed.

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Fukada, Eiichi. “Piezoelectricity of Wood.” Journal of the Physical Society of Japan 10 (1955): 149-154.

Neher, Erwin, and Bert Sakmann. “The Patch Clamp Technique.” Scientific American, vol. 266, no. 3, 1992, pp. 44–51.

Grimnes, Sverre and G. Martinsen, Ørjan. "Some thoughts on bioimpedance and biodielectrics" Journal of Electrical Bioimpedance, vol.4, no.1, 2013