Integrated Cell-based Biosensor for Extracellular Electrophysiological Monitoring

A rigorous preselection of identified compounds by in vitro cellular screening is necessary prior to using the drug candidates for the further time consuming and parallel monitoring stage. In this paper we introduced an integrated cell based chip which can detect changes of electrophysiological parameters by using microelectronic chips such as light-addressable potentiometric sensors(LAPS), micro-electrodes array sensors(MEAS) and interdigitated array sensor(IDA) etc. to record the extracellular metabolism chemical and biological substances, action potential and living characteristics of cells representing the different response. In this research we presented novel ideas including an integrating multifunctional cell sensors chip, obtaining the living cells as the source of cell sensors with cardiac myocytes. Further developments will be done by culturing living olfactory and taste cells on surface of the devices. Now, we have completed the fabrication of the sensor and obtained some promising experiments results in different sensor units. This research will be interesting and useful for parallel extracellular monitoring.