Energy generation from biological cellsSemiconductor Technology radically improving medical technology
By: Celtro GmbH Celtro GmbH was founded in Dresden, Germany in 2019 with the aim of supplying autonomous medical products from such "cell power plants". Building on its portfolio of intellectual property rights in the field of nanowatt electronics, Celtro GmbH has started developing such medical products. Electrical energy harvesting replaces the battery as an energy storage, in view to supply medical applications such as patient monitoring and pace-makers. The basic idea is that living cells in an organism resemble biological batteries that constantly generate electrical energy. If it becomes possible to use a small part of this energy, implantable medical devices would become energy-self- "Moore's Law is our friend," says Dr.-Ing. Gerd Teepe, Founder and CEO of Celtro GmbH. "Today's semiconductor technologies are astonigishly powerful. 1000 billion (1012) computing operations per second can be performed with less than 1 watt of energy consumption. However, biological processes are much slower. This allows us to reduce the energy consumption down to several nanowatts. This is sufficient for biological functions and low enough to be generated by the tissue itself. Self-sufficient implantable systems become possible. Co-Founder, Dr.-med. Judith Piorkowski, cardiologist and electrophysiologist, explains this in more detail: "A cell absorbs sugar as an energy source and converts it into electrical and mechanical energy. There are billions of cells in a heart. Only a small fraction of the energy converted there is needed for the operation of self-sufficient implants, such as pacemakers." Celtro GmbH successfully completed its first financing round in December 2021. Private investors come from Germany and the USA. The state of Saxony is also supporting the development project financially in the context of its technology support program and facilitated an early operational start. The current focus is on semiconductor development in cooperation with partners in Saxony. For 2022, an expansion of the staff in Dresden with experts from the fields of semiconductor development, system development and cell biology is planned. With the conclusion of the Seed financing round, the first phase of the "NanoPower-BioChip" "We are very pleased that both private investors and the state of Saxony support our breakthrough vision of energy-self- about Celtro GmbH, please refer to http://www.celtro.de *) The NanoPower-BioChip project is co-financed with tax revenues based on the budget adopted by the Saxon State Parliament. Contact Dr. Gerd Teepe, Bischofsweg 106, 01099 Dresden, Germany ***@celtro.de Photo: https://www.prlog.org/ End
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