A self-powered, implantable bone-electronic interface for home-based therapeutic strategy of bone regeneration

Bone traumatic injuries, enduring a prolonged healing process since it involves a series of bio events, becomes gradually challenging with increasing aging population. The integration of a home-based therapy strategy with emerging microelectronic technology holds promise for optimizing the whole long-term healing process of bone defect. Given the bioelectric properties of bone, utilizing biomedical electronics to providing external electric field (EF) is preferred for physical therapy strategies. Our study provides a wireless implantable bone-electronic interface (IBEI) based on ultrasonic-driven battery-free piezoelectric technology. The IBEI without percutaneous leads can effectively complete the process of converting ultrasonic signals into electric signals and finally into biological signals for bone repair. This system is miniatured, battery-free, wireless, controllable, biocomfortable and biosafe with high osteogenic efficiency. For the underlying mechanism, the EF can activate multicellular synergistic osteogenesis and up-regulate the Ca2+/CaMKIIα/CREB signal pathway in osteogenesis effector cells. The IBEI aligns with the future trajectory of home-based medicine, presenting a commendable therapy pattern for doctor-patient collaboration and offering a novel perspective in the realm of physical therapy.