title: Electroporation-based applications in biotechnology.
abstract: Electroporation is already an established technique in several areas of medicine, but many of its biotechnological applications have only started to emerge; we review here some of the most promising. We outline electroporation as a phenomenon and then proceed to applications, first outlining the best established - the use of reversible electroporation for heritable genetic modification of microorganisms (electrotransformation), and then explore recent advances in applying electroporation for inactivation of microorganisms, extraction of biomolecules, and fast drying of biomass. Although these applications often aim to upscale to the industrial and/or clinical level, we also outline some important chip-scale applications of electroporation. We conclude our review with a discussion of the main challenges and future perspectives.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Tržaška 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Tadej
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kotnik
authors.affiliation: Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-v-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.affiliation: Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-v-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sack
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Tržaška 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Saša
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haberl Meglič
authors.affiliation: Instrumentation and Process Control, Centre of Excellence for Biosensors, Tovarniška cesta 26, 5270 Ajdovščina, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Matjaž
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Peterka
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Tržaška 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. Electronic address: damijan.miklavcic@fe.uni-lj.si.
authors.forename: Damijan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Miklavčič
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology; D018274:Electroporation