Magnetoelectric nanodevices as smart nano-tools in biology, medicine and biorobotics

Along with the progress in nanotechnology, nanomaterials which possess a magnetoelectric behaviour have attracted a great research attention. Exploitation of such structures leverages on the mechanical coupling at the interface of two different phases: a magnetostrictive phase, which can be activated by an external magnetic field, and a piezoelectric one, which can generate a voltage upon deformation induced by the other phase. In principle, this peculiar working mechanism makes it is possible to apply this magnetoelectric nanostructures as highly multifunctional devices, enabling high-resolution diagnosis and efficient treatment of various diseases, with minimal invasiveness, by wireless stimulation. Despite their great potential in the fields of non-invasive detection and treatments and bionic prosthetics, the application of these “smart” magnetoelectric nanomaterials in medicine is still limited, due to their novelty, thus requiring extensive investigations both on their technological aspects and on their biocompatibility and body clearance.

Thanks to their ability to manipulate electric fields at the cellular level, magnetoelectric nanomaterials could be promising tools for a wide range of applications in biology, medicine and biorobotics, thanks to their minimally invasiveness and high efficiency, thus becoming enablers of radically new approaches in a wide range of applications. The overall goal of this collection is to comprehensively investigate the current progress of magnetoelectric nanomaterials development and testing, with focus on design, innovative synthesis methods, properties in biological environment, interactions with biological counterparts, device control and therapeutic protocol elaboration. Moreover, in silico investigations of the structure-property relationships as well as the modeling of the nanomaterial wireless stimulations and their magnetoelectric signal transduction will highly contribute to addressing new open challenges in medicine.

This Research Topic welcomes submissions related (but not limited) to the following sub-themes:

• Synthesis strategies for magnetoelectric nanomaterials designed for biomedical applications

• Multilevel characterization (analysis of chemical, magnetic/piezoelectric mechanical features, surface properties, biocompatibility) of magnetoelectric nanomaterials

• Modelling of magnetoelectric nanomaterials behavior at the nanoscale through finite element methods

• Realization of 3D hybrid magnetoelectric nano-functionalized grafts for tissue regeneration

• Magnetoelectric nanomaterials for different biomedical applications, such as wireless stimulation (brain, nerve tissues), nano-electroporation, drug delivery, biomedical signal sensing.