# Developing nanoscale electrophysiology sensors for robust intracellular recording

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $312,691

## Abstract

Project Summary / Abstract:
 Action potentials of electrogenic cells, such as neurons and cardiomyocytes, are crucial for their
physiological functions. Neurons use action potential to transmit signals over long distances, and cardiomyocytes
use action potentials to synchronize the contraction of millions of cells during each heartbeat. To understand
these important physiological functions, one of the most important tactics is to accurately record the electrical
potentials from cells. However, the current two major classes of electrophysiological methods, intracellular and
extracellular recording, suffer severe limitations in their applications. Intracellular recording such as patch clamp
suffers from extremely low throughput and toxic intracellular dialysis. Extracellular recording such as planar
electrode array suffers from poor signal and lack of one-to-one cell-to-electrode coupling. In the last decade,
much effort has been focused on developing new generation of electrophysiology tools to achieve high
throughput intracellular recording. In particular, nanotechnology-based electrode sensors developed
independently in several groups has shown great promise in achieving highly sensitive and high throughput
intracellular recording. However, developing these nascent technologies into robust electrophysiological tools
would require extensive studies for characterization, validation, and optimization. This proposal aims to develop
the nanoelectrode technology into robust electrophysiological tools for biomedical research. When accomplished,
this new technology will enable users to (a) perform sensitive, intracellular recording of action potentials from
tens to hundreds of individual cells simultaneously; (b) achieve long-term, minimally-invasive recording of the
cells for days to weeks; and (c) afford stable culture and recording of the hSC-CMs under optimal environmental
conditions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9973072
- **Project number:** 5R01GM125737-04
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Bianxiao Cui
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $312,691
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-15 → 2021-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9973072

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9973072, Developing nanoscale electrophysiology sensors for robust intracellular recording (5R01GM125737-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9973072. Licensed CC0.

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