Dawn of the 'cyborg plants'

Merging electronics with biology, a team of researchers has created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants.

Researchers at Linkoping University, under the leadership of Professor Magnus Berggren, have used the vascular system of living roses to build key components of electronic circuits.

The article demonstrates wires, digital logic, and even displays elements - fabricated inside the plants - that could develop new applications for organic electronics and new tools in plant science.

Augmenting plants with electronic functionality would make it possible to combine electric signals with the plant's own chemical processes. Controlling and interfacing with chemical pathways in plants could pave the way to photosynthesis-based fuel cells, sensors and growth regulators, and devices that modulate the internal functions of plants.

"Previously, we had no good tools for measuring the concentration of various molecules in living plants. Now we'll be able to influence the concentration of the various substances in the plant that regulate growth and development. Here, I see great possibilities for learning more," says co-author Ove Nilsson.

The study appears in the journal Science Advances.