Biological organisms electrical conduction

The initial reaction to the proposition that electric currents flow in biological organisms was understandably negative. It seemed like proposing that paraffin conducts electricity. Indeed, in the early investigations of this subject, the common view seemed to be justified, for proteins that were crystallized out from the dissolved form and thoroughly dried show an extremely high resistivity. 

The transfer of a single electron between two chemical entities is the simplest of oxidation-reduction processes, but it is of central importance in vast areas of chemistry. Electron transfer processes constitute the fundamental steps in biological utilization of oxygen, in electrical conductivity, in oxidation reduction reactions of organic and inorganic substrates, in many catalytic processes, in the transduction of the sun s energy by plants and by synthetic solar cells, and so on. The breadth and complexity of the subject is evident from the five volume handbook Electron Transfer in Chemistry (V. Balzani, Ed.), published in 2001. The most fimdamental principles that govern the efficiencies, the yields or the rates of electron-transfer processes are independent of the nature of the substrates. The properties of the substrates do dictate the conditions for apphcability of those fimdamental... 

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