Ultra-thin electrodes for wound healing monitoring and drug screening on curved interfaces

Abstract Electrical monitoring of wound healing remains limited by insufficient compatibility with curved biological surfaces. Here, we report on ultra-thin, transferable gold electrodes fabricated on poly(2-chloro-p-xylylene) (Parylene C) membranes and integrated with fluorosilicone curved contact lenses, demonstrating their functionality in real-time electrical monitoring of epithelial healing. The platform enables in vitro culture of HEK-293 monolayers structurally mimicking curved epithelial models. Healing dynamics are probed by recording the plateau current across pairs of front-facing electrodes under low-amplitude voltage steps, capturing changes in ionic resistance across wound gaps. The system resolves time-dependent restoration of barrier integrity and detects pharmacologically induced modulation with lidocaine, neomycin, and ouabain. Finite element 3D simulations confirm sensitivity to conductivity changes in biologically relevant regimes. This approach offers a geometrically versatile, optically accessible, and drug-responsive interface for dynamic bioelectrical assays on non-planar surfaces, relevant to wound healing and future ex vivo corneal regenerative studies.