At the crossroads of biology and electronics

All cells are innately equipped with systems to detect and respond to electrical inputs in the form of reactive oxygen species, redox signaling, or membrane depolarization through ion exchange. Electrogenetics aims to leverage these cellular systems to create interfaces between biology and electronics, in order to achieve levels of precision in spatiotemporal control of gene and protein expression that are not possible with chemo-, opto-, or thermogenetics. In this review, we discuss the impact, challenges, and prospects of electrogenetics in the context of recent cutting-edge applications.