1. Electroporation based Technologies and Treatments

2. “Cells can be funny. Try to grow them with a slightly wrong recipe, and they turn over and die. But hit them with an electric field strong enough to knock over a horse, and they do enough things to justify international meetings, to fill a sizeable book, and to lead one to speak of an entirely new technology for cell manipulation.”
Adrian Parsegian
from the foreword to the
Electroporation and Electrofusion in Cell Biology
Edited by E. Neumann, A. S. Sowers and C. A. Jordan

3. Electroporation
Electroporation is the permeabilization of the cell membrane due to an applied electric field. As a function of the field amplitude and duration, the permeabilization can be reversible or irreversible.

5. How electroporation works?
High transmembrane potential disrupts lipid bilayer and sets up electric field
Pores open for fractions of a second
Charged molecules will move down potential gradients and through membrane pores

6. Electroporation based Technologies and Treatments
Molecular cell biology research- transfection
Protein insertion into cell membrane
Cell fusion
Gene expression silencing by siRNA
Electrochemotherapy
Genetherapy based on electro gene transfer
Transdermal drug delivery
Biotechnology

7. Electrochemotherapy = = chemotherapy + electroporation
Electric pulse generator
Chemotherapeutic surrounds the cells
Increased membrane permeability allows access to the cytosol
Pores reseal
Electrodes
time
Tumour
Electric pulse application
Injecting chemotherapeutic

8. Cell (electro)fusion Monoclonal antibody production
Cancer immunotherapy
Receptor insertion into membrane
Tissue regeneration
Research (disease models)