Breakthrough in Bioelectronics: Artificial Neurons Mimic Nature (techlife.blog)

A team at UMass Amherst led by Jun Yao has built artificial neurons that operate at about 0.1 volts—roughly the same voltage scale as biological neurons—by leveraging protein nanowires produced by the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens. The devices mimic natural neuronal electrical activity while running at millivolt-level potentials, a major step beyond conventional silicon circuits that require higher voltages and bulky amplification. This follows the group’s prior work on conductive microbial nanowires and represents a concrete advance in bioelectronics and neuromorphic hardware. The significance is twofold: energy and interfacing. Low-voltage operation could eliminate power-hungry signal amplification, shrinking circuit complexity and enabling orders-of-magnitude improvements in energy efficiency—relevant given the huge gap between human brain energy use (~20 W) and large AI models (on the order of megawatts). Practical outcomes include ultra-low-power bio-inspired computing, more seamless wearable sensors, and electronics that can directly communicate with biological tissue. Supported by the Army Research Office, NSF, NIH and the Sloan Foundation, the work highlights interdisciplinary progress, though challenges remain in system integration, scaling, and long-term biocompatibility before commercial or clinical deployment.