| I have mildly sensitive skin, and have generally avoided infections that require the use of powerful drugs to fight them. That’s a good thing, because several strains of Staphylococcus epidermidis, a common bacterium found on the human skin, are resistant to multiple antibiotics. For healthy people, S. epidermidis is usually harmless and can even protect the skin from pathogens. But for those with weakened immune systems, it can cause serious infections — particularly when they’re at the hospital for other reasons. Researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Chicago have been studying whether bacterial infections can be controlled using electric currents instead of drugs, though it’s still at a very early stage. Given pacemakers help a patient’s heart beat normally through electrical impulses that stimulate the heart, the researchers wondered whether bacterium would also respond to electrical stimulation. “Bacteria’s response to electricity isn’t well explored,” says Saehyun Kim, first author of the paper published in the Cell Press journal Device. That’s partly because of the lack of clarity around what specific conditions are needed to elicit a response. As part of their experiment, the research team designed a skin patch device containing electrodes and a hydrogel, which they tested on a pork skin inoculated with S. epidermidis. Electric zaps of just 1.5 volts were administered for 10 seconds every 10 minutes for 18 hours. At the end, the researchers found a significant decrease in biofilm — a cluster of bacteria that blocks drugs and leads to persistent infections — as well as a reduction in S. epidermidis cells compared with a skin sample that didn’t undergo electric zaps. There are some challenges to the device they designed. It uses AC stimulation, which might not be as convenient for wearable devices, and also isn’t power-efficient. As it hasn’t yet been tested on humans, it’s unclear whether infections can actually be eliminated as a result of electric zaps to the skin. Still, the researchers are optimistic about the potential for electricity to be used to help combat antimicrobial resistance. More than 39 million people could die globally from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, according to a study published in The Lancet last month. “This opens up exciting possibilities for drug-free treatments, especially for skin infections and wound healing, where antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a serious challenge,” says Bozhi Tian, one of the co-senior authors of the paper published in Device. In the meantime, I plan to avoid both electric zaps and skin infections as much as I can. —Lisa Pham | 
