No Electricity, No Life

Colin McCaig is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was Regius Professor of Physiology, University of Aberdeen, for 20 years until retiring in 2022. His first paper, J.Physiol 314, 121-135 (1981), was seminal in reopening the issue of electrical guidance of nerve growth and wound healing. His lab and colleagues established that electrical signals control wound healing, nerve guidance and epithelial cell guidance in vivo and regulate proliferation and guidance of neurons, vascular endothelial cells, tumour cells and lens epithelial cells. Collectively these have major clinical relevance in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Several electrical devices to treat skin wounds are based on his wound healing studies.

Electrical Forces in Biology Across Distances.- Electricity in Space and on Earth.- Electricity in the Creation of Life.- Long-Distance Electron Transport in Unicellular Organisms and Biofilms.- Multicellularity and Electrical Forces.- Epithelia are Scaffolds for Electricity-Dependent Molecular Interactions.- Electrical Forces in Lumen Formation.- The Link Between Oxygen and Basement Membranes.- Membrane Surface Charge, Phospholipids and Protein Localisation.- Electrical Forces Regulated Single Cell Wound Healing.- How Electricity Prevents Us from Bleeding to Death.- Nucleic Acids and Electrical Signals.- Making Proteins with Electricity.- Spatially Regulated Electrical Forces for Biological Catalysis.- Epigenetic Regulation via Electrical Forces.- Neurological Diseases Regulated by Phase Separation.- Synaptic Physiology Depend on Electrical Forces and Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation.- SARS-CoV-2 is an Electricity-Driven Virus.- Crucial Roles of Electricity in Virology.- Electric Forces and ATP Synthesis.- Electrical Forces Improve Memory in Old Age.