This seems super cool. Like…too cool. I want to know how this electrogenetic interface works. They talk about using electrically stimulating acupuncture needles to activate human pancreatic cells in the test diabetic mice.

They just zap it? They zap it with a certain frequency or pattern of direct current? How do they make it affect certain genes specifically and not some other gene or something else in the cells?

Guess I’ll go to the article linked paper in the journal Nature:

Here we provide the missing link by developing an electrogenetic interface that we call direct current (DC)-actuated regulation technology (DART), which enables electrode-mediated, time- and voltage-dependent transgene expression in human cells using DC from batteries. DART utilizes a DC supply to generate non-toxic levels of reactive oxygen species that act via a biosensor to reversibly fine-tune synthetic promoters.

Ah. Of course, reactive oxygen species to fine-tune synthetic promoters. Obvious, really because I…uh, I totally understand this.