MINI REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomaterials
This article is part of the Research TopicBioresorbable Materials: What is New?View all 3 articles
Bioresorbable Electrodes in Implantable Electronic Healthcare Devices
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Nano-Microsystems for Life Sciences, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf Institut fur Radiopharmazeutische Krebsforschung, Dresden, Germany
- 2Technische Universitat Dresden Else Kroner Fresenius Zentrum fur Digitale Gesundheit, Dresden, Germany
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Implantable electronic devices for local in vivo monitoring of health parameters are an invaluable supplement to traditional diagnostic tools, offering real-time and personalized assessment. Such devices can be used to deliver different formats of patient-tailored treatment via controlled drug delivery or targeted stimulation. While nondegradable electronic healthcare devices are often challenging to interface with soft tissues and introduce risks associated with surgical extraction procedures, bioresorbable electronics–electronics that is safely decomposed and physiologically absorbed in the human body–undergoes controlled degradation and thus offers a promising approach for temporary monitoring and therapy. The crucial components of temporary bioelectronics are bioresorbable electrodes–electrically conductive interfaces that can be safely resorbed in the body–that should provide seamless integration with surrounding tissues, reliable functionality, and sufficient electromechanical integrity during their operational lifetime. Such electrodes find use as physical and chemical sensing elements, stimulator interfaces, and drug delivery modulators. Advances in materials science have led to significant milestones, such as 1) highly localized electrode-tissue interfacing, 2) monitoring of moving organs and less invasive implantation, and 3) electrochemical sensing with interference and degradation compensation. Additionally, integrated bioresorbable power sources and photo-or acoustically induced modulation have obviated the need for physical interconnects with external components. This mini review provides core insights into the emerging applications of bioresorbable electrodes for sensors, electroceuticals, and multifunctional devices combining sensing with electrotherapy, optogenetic stimulation, and/or drug delivery. We focus on application-specific materials selection and discuss the perspectives for improving the design and development of bioresorbable electronic healthcare devices.
Keywords: degradable electrodes, electrode-tissue interfacing, bioresorbable conductive composites, Triggered degradation, Electroceuticals, Healthcare monitoring, Implantable electronic devices, transientbioelectronics
Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Đorđević, Baraban and Janićijević. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Željko Vladan Janićijević, z.janicijevic@hzdr.de
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