If your body needs a boost, the fix might already be in your phone.
A new study from the University of Chicago taps an ingredient most often used in the lithium-ion batteries that power our devices to open new avenues in biomedical technology.
Lithium plays vital roles in the body, but taking it orally can have unwanted side effects—so a pair of UChicago chemistry labs teamed up to find a way to deliver lithium only to the exact places where it’s needed.
Their study, published March 27th in Nature Materials, could be the foundation for future biomedical technologies to treat pain and disease.
“On the surface, it sounds like a crazy idea to place a lithium-ion battery electrode onto a living tissue, but the results we had are very promising,” said Zhe Cheng, first author of the study and a graduate student at UChicago. “Lithium calms nerve activity, which makes it potentially very useful—we have many biomedical approaches to precisely stimulate nerves, but less to dampen them, which is what is needed for pain relief and other disorders.”
The promise of lithium
Doctors have known for decades that lithium has applications in human health. It’s most widely used as a mood stabilizer, but is also being explored for pain relief, Alzheimer’s disease and even neural regeneration, among other areas.
The trouble is that taking lithium as a pill means it gets delivered to every part of the body, not just the part that needs it—which puts strain on the kidneys and liver as they work to clear it.
To tackle this, two sets of researchers teamed up: Prof. Bozhi Tian, whose lab specializes in creating innovative biomedical devices, and Assoc. Prof. Chong Liu, with the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, whose lab develops advanced materials.
They turned to lithium batteries, which are already designed to store lots of lithium ions and release them only on command. After a few tests, the team zeroed in on lithium iron phosphate, which is used as the cathode in many batteries and is stable and nontoxic.
“Plus, it’s a very mature technology, so we understand a lot about the material already,” explained Liu.
Cheng created a tiny, flexible patch with lithium iron phosphate, and tested it as a means of pain relief. Since lithium dampens nerve activity, their idea was to implant the patch near a nerve and deliver a brief electrical signal that would cause the patch to release lithium ions on command—reducing the nerve signaling and with it, the sensation of pain.
In experiments with mice and rats, the team found the patch successfully dampened nerve signals.
“We found the activity is very, very localized,” Cheng said. “The lithium doesn’t migrate far from the patch, while still delivering long-lasting neural inhibition.”
More ions, more possibilities
The initial study is a proof of concept, the scientists said, but they hope it could open the door for future technologies. For example, perhaps the technology could be incorporated into electrical acupuncture to avoid the need for an implant.
Another avenue, Tian said, could be to switch up the main ingredient.
“We focused on lithium, but we think you could potentially use other ions that are important in the body, like magnesium, zinc or calcium,” he said. “For example, magnesium is important for supporting protein folding and stabilizing protein structure, so could you use it to selectively treat diseases caused by misfolded proteins?”
The team is working with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to further the invention.
Other UChicago coauthors were postdoctoral researchers Tiantian Guo, Chuanwang Yang and Ananth Kamath; graduate student Suin Choi; Jing Zhang, then a postdoctoral researcher, now at Zhejiang University; Jiping Yue, now at AbbVie; and Gangbin Yan, PhD’24, now at Stanford University; and Saehyun Kim, PhD’25, now at CZ Chicago Biohub.
The study made use of the Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility, the UChicago Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the Soft Matter Characterization Facility at UChicago.
Citation: “Mineral-originated bioelectronics for inhibition via lithium electrochemistry.” Cheng et al, Nature Materials.
Funding: U.S. Army Research Office, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation.