Can we heal people using electricity? Developing fundamental understanding and bioelectronic devices to exploit bioelectricity in bioengineering.

生物电是生物体内电荷的存在和运动。它在生命的运作和调节中起着至关重要的作用，并对许多迷人的自然现象负责。然而，它仍然是生活中最不被理解的方面之一。许多科学研究已经发展到不同的领域。我们熟悉帮助调节心脏内电信号的起搏器，但可能不太了解电场在帮助引导细胞愈合伤口或在我们的基本发育过程中调节器官大小方面的作用。在某些研究领域，我们的实验可以与路易吉·伽伐尼（Luigi Galvani）早在18世纪末在青蛙腿上放置电线的工作相媲美。联合起来思考生物电，结合多个研究学科的见解是必要的，沿着更好的实验技术。与此同时，我们的新工具必须能够将生物电的作用与影响活细胞和组织行为的所有其他因素（例如，外力和不同生物活性分子的模式）联系起来。该项目将建立新的方法来发展我们对生物电的理解。它将通过构建复杂的生物电子设备来实现这一点，这些设备通过同时整合许多输入和测量许多输出来反映生物和生物工程问题的复杂性。同时，它还将提供一个网络，将生物工程师，发育生物学家，生物药理学家和临床医生聚集在一起，进一步研究生物电的作用。

Bioelectricity is the presence and movement of electrical charges inside living organisms. It plays a critical role in the operation and regulation of life and is responsible for many fascinating natural phenomena. However, it remains one of the least well understood aspects of life. Much of the scientific research has evolved into separate fields. We're familiar with pacemakers that help regulate electrical signals within the heart, but perhaps less aware of the role electric fields play in helping guide cells to heal our wounds or regulate the size of our organs during our fundamental development. In some areas of research, our experiments are comparable to Luigi Galvani's work placing wires in frogs' legs, back in the late 1700s.Joined up thinking about bioelectricity, combining insights from multiple research disciplines is needed, along with better experimental techniques. At the same time, our new tools must be able to contextualise the role of bioelectricity alongside all the other factors that influence living cell and tissue behaviour (for example, external forces and the patterns of different biologically active molecules).This project will establish new methods for developing our understanding of bioelectricity. It will do this by building intricate bioelectronic devices that reflect the complexity of biological and bioengineering problems by incorporating many inputs and measuring many outputs at once. At the same time, it will also provide a network for bringing bioengineers, developmental biologists, biophysicists, and clinicians to further investigate the role of bioelectricity together.