Mimicking Electric Eel Cells 71
An anonymous reader writes "A team of US researchers has asked the following question in the new field of systems biology: 'Do we understand how a cell produces electricity well enough to design one, and to optimize that design?' They believe it should be possible to build artificial cells replicating the electrical behavior of electric eel cells. In fact, such artificial cells could deliver better performance — as much as 40% more energy than real eel cells, a computer model suggests. They could be used to power medical implants and other small devices."
Re:Is this like... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fuel (food) is not as efficient as a purely chemical and non-biological approach.
On the other hand, eating is much simpler and the patient already happens to do it,
compared to having to swap batteries around.
Artificial zombie cells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just creating the membranes would produce the equivalent of an artificial zombie cell, with no self-repair mechanisms and no way to replace them. A battery like this would be subject to attack by the immune system and by bacteria in the body, and likely "rot" in no time. Without the whole mechanism of a living cell to sustain it ... without the "brain" of the cell... it would need to be sealed and unable to take advantage of the bodies supply of ATP.
Better to see if you can enhance human cells, maybe even the recipient's own cells, to do the job.
Re:Matrix Me (Score:2, Insightful)