Cell Based Biosensors

C.S. Ozkan
Univeristy of California at Riverside, US

Keywords: biosensors, Microarrays, Signature Patterns

Abstract:
Cell based biosensors offer the capability for detecting chemical and biological agents in a wide spectrum. Membrane excitability in cells plays a key role in modulating the electrical activity due to chemical agents. However, the complexity of these signals makes the interpretation of the cellular response to a chemical agent rather difficult. It is possible to determine a frequency spectrum also known as the signature pattern vector (SPV) for a given chemical agent through analysis of the power spectrum of the cell signal. It is also essential to characterize single cell sensitivity and response time for specific chemical agents for developing detect-to-warn biosensors. In order to determine the real time sensing capability of single cell based sensors, multi-chemical or cascaded sensing is conducted and the performance of the sensor is evaluated. We describe a system for the measurement of extracellular potentials from primary rat osteoblast cells isolated onto planar microelectrode arrays using a gradient AC electric field. Fast Fourier and Wavelet Transformation techniques are used to extract information related to the frequency of firing from the extracellular potential. Quantitative dose response curves and response times are obtained using local time domain characterization techniques. Future applications of this technique will also be discussed.

Nanotech 2004 Conference Technical Program Abstract