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Content archived on 2024-06-18

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPLANTABLE CELLULAR POWER SUPPLY BASED ON RABBIT CARDIAC CELLS

Objective

"This project brings together a research fellow with a unique background in medical physics, electronics and chemistry to the biophysics group at ENS. The aim is to develop a new type of battery based on living cardiac myocyte cells. Through the application of newly-learnt life science skills the fellow will demonstrate how microfluidics can be used for the realization of this perpetual bio-battery.

Global demographics is skewing to that of an aging population which has a higher prevalence of age related diseases and growing dependence on “medical fixes.” Pacemakers and other medical electronics require batteries which must be surgically replaced every 5-7 yrs. The hazardous waste and pain associated with surgical replacement of implanted batteries could be removed by the creation of a cellular power supply which uses blood glucose and oxygen as fuel and oxidizer to produce usable electricity. Demand for such a power supply in the future will be huge and presents an opportunity for Europe to get ahead of America.

The scientific objectives are:
• To create microfluidic devices with high resolution nano-structures for confining cells to specific channel regions.
• To culture rabbit cardiac myocytes both individually and in colonies of varying sizes on the microfluidic device within the special adhesion zones.
• To use electrophysiological and microscopic techniques to better understand the propagation of action potential through individual and colonies of cardiac cells which are specially separated within a microfluidic channel geometry.

The planned deliverables are:
• A series of microfluidic devices capable of supporting individual and colonies of myocytes;
• A demonstrable cellular power supply capable of producing pulsed or continuous electrical currents;
• Several high quality publications relating to myocyte communication and propagation of action potentials for use in an implantable cellular power supply."

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF
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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE
EU contribution
€ 185 248,00
Address
45, RUE D'ULM
75230 Paris
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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