Ultra energy efficient systems in biology, engineering, and medicine

Abstract

Summary form only given. Nature is a great analog and digital circuit designer. She has innovated circuits in the biochemical, biomechanical, and bioelectronic domains that operate robustly with highly noisy and imprecise parts and with incredibly low levels of energy. Her impressive accomplishment is largely due to the fact that she uses both analog (graded) and digital (all-or-none) circuits within her cells to sense, actuate, compute, and communicate [1]. Analog and bio-inspired approaches that mimic nature can also create ultra-energy-efficient systems: For example, we show how neural prosthetics of the future such as brain-machine interfaces for the paralyzed can be made so energy efficient [1] that they can be powered from a novel glucose fuel cell that harvests energy from bodily fluids [2]. I also discuss how a positive-feedback loop between analog circuits and cell biology may enable similar synergistic improvements in synthetic and systems biology.