Interfacing bioelectronic tools for plant science
By Eleni Stavrinidou, Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University (Norrköping, Sweden)
The climate change and growing population call for plants with increased tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and for plants with higher productivity. I will present our recent advancements on interfacing bioelectronic tools with model plant systems with the aim to enable new discoveries and possibilities in plant science. We recently developed conformable multielectrode arrays based on organic electronics for large-scale and highresolution plant electrophysiology. This technology enabled us to performed precise spatiotemporal mapping of the action potential in Venus flytrap, a model system for fast electrical signalling, and to reveal key properties of the AP. Currently we are extending the application of this technology to other plant species with the aim to contribute to the mechanistic understanding of long-distance responses in plants particularly related to environmental stress. Apart from monitoring electrical signals we also used electric field to stimulate plants. We developed a bioelectronic platform, the eSoil, that stimulates the growth of plants in hydroponics culture, increasing their biomass by 50%. This work opens the pathway for enhancing plant growth in hydroponics using materials science and bioelectronics that may result in more sustainable food production.
Invited IMB-CNM Talk organized within the Innovation with Purpose María de Maeztu Sessions.
About the speaker
Eleni Stavrinidou is Senior Associate Professor of Bioengineering and leader of the Electronic Plants group at Linköping University. She received a PhD in Microelectronics from EMSE (France) in 2014. She then did her postdoctoral training at Linköping University (Sweden) during which she was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship. In 2017 Stavrinidou became Assistant Professor at Linköping University and established the Electronic Plants group. In 2020 she became Associate Professor and Docent in Applied Physics. She received several grants including the Future Research Leaders grant of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, ERC-Staring Grant and Swedish Research Council Consolidator Grant.
Stavrinidou is recipient of the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science prize in Sweden (2019), the Tage Erlander Prize for Natural Sciences and Technology from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2023) and the Young Scientist Award in Natural Sciences from the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts (2025). Since 2023 Stavrinidou is serving as Associate Editor of Science Advances. Her research interests focus on plant bioelectronics for real time monitoring and dynamic control of plant physiology and plant-based biohybrid living materials and devices.