Boosting hydrogel conductivity via water-dispersible conducting polymers for injectable bioelectronics
Creators
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Montazerian, Hossein1, 2, 3, 4
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Davoodi, Elham3, 5
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Wang, Canran5
- Lorestani, Farnaz6
- Li, Jiahong5
- Haghniaz, Reihaneh4
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Sampath, Rohan R.2
- Mohaghegh, Neda4
- Khosravi, Safoora4, 7
- Zehtabi, Fatemeh4
- Zhao, Yichao1
- Hosseinzadeh, Negar4
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Liu, Tianhan2
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Hsiai, Tzung K.2
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Najafabadi, Alireza Hassani4
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Langer, Robert1, 8, 9
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Anderson, Daniel G.1, 8, 9
- Weiss, Paul S.2
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Khademhosseini, Ali4
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Gao, Wei5
- 1. David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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2.
University of California, Los Angeles
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3.
University of Utah
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4.
Terasaki Foundation
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5.
California Institute of Technology
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6.
Pennsylvania State University
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7.
University of British Columbia
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8.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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9.
Boston Children's Hospital
Abstract
Bioelectronic devices hold transformative potential for healthcare diagnostics and therapeutics. Yet, traditional electronic implants often require invasive surgeries and are mechanically incompatible with biological tissues. Injectable hydrogel bioelectronics offer a minimally invasive alternative that interfaces with soft tissue seamlessly. A major challenge is the low conductivity of bioelectronic systems, stemming from poor dispersibility of conductive additives in hydrogel mixtures. We address this issue by engineering doping conditions with hydrophilic biomacromolecules, enhancing the dispersibility of conductive polymers in aqueous systems. This approach achieves a 5-fold increase in dispersibility and a 20-fold boost in conductivity compared to conventional methods. The resulting conductive polymers are molecularly and in vivo degradable, making them suitable for transient bioelectronics applications. These additives are compatible with various hydrogel systems, such as alginate, forming ionically cross-linkable conductive inks for 3D-printed wearable electronics toward high-performance physiological monitoring. Furthermore, integrating conductive fillers with gelatin-based bioadhesive hydrogels substantially enhances conductivity for injectable sealants, achieving 250% greater sensitivity in pH sensing for chronic wound monitoring. Our findings indicate that hydrophilic dopants effectively tailor conducting polymers for hydrogel fillers, enhancing their biodegradability and expanding applications in transient implantable biomonitoring.
Errata
An Author Correction (attached) to this article was published on 12 June 2025: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60718-0
Copyright and License
© 2025, The Author(s). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Institutes of Health (R01EB023052, R01HL140618, R01EB031992, R01HL155815, and R01DC021461) and Heritage Medical Research Institute. E.D. thanks for the support from the National Institutes of Health Training Grant (T32EB023858).
Supplemental Material
Supplementary information attached: 41467_2025_59045_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Data Availability
Source data atached: 41467_2025_59045_MOESM4_ESM.xlsx
Files
s41467-025-59045-1.pdf
Additional details
Related works
- Describes
- Journal Article: https://rdcu.be/ePfED (ReadCube)
- Is corrected by
- Erratum: 10.1038/s41467-025-60718-0 (DOI)
Funding
- National Institutes of Health
- R01DC021461
- National Institutes of Health
- T32EB023858
- National Institutes of Health
- R01EB031992
- National Institutes of Health
- R01EB023052
- National Institutes of Health
- R01HL140618