Engineering Research Equipment Grant: Biosensor Laboratory

用于生物反应器应用的商用溶解氧探头具有许多不受欢迎的特性，例如校准漂移和流动敏感性。利用最先进的集成电路制造技术，提出了一种不存在这些缺点的可蒸汽灭菌的溶解氧探头。此外，还将开发具有几微米大小的传感尖端的微型探针，用于监测固定化细胞层内各种发酵底物和产物的局部浓度。这些建议的传感器特别适用于监测涉及剪切敏感的哺乳动物细胞培养和固定化细胞的生物过程，这些细胞近年来在工业上具有重要意义。微电路制造技术在构建溶解氧探针方面的成功应用有望为制造用于生物过程监测的传感器提供广泛的可能性。通过在一块芯片上集成多个传感器，可以同时监测多个参数。通过结合酶和单抗，传感器芯片可以检测下游和上游生物过程中涉及的各种小分子和大分子。拟议的用于固定化细胞应用的微探针将使蛋鸡的测量成为可能。这样的测量以前是不可能的，预计将极大地帮助科学家和工程师研究固定化细胞的生理行为。所获得的知识可以应用于优化生物反应器的操作和设计。因此，预计拟议中的传感器将为推进生物技术做出重大贡献，生物技术是国家重点关注的领域。

Commercially available dissolved oxygen probes for bioreactor applications have a number of undesirable characteristics such as calibration drift and flow sensitivity. By making use of the state- of-the-art integrated circuit fabrication technology, it is proposed to develop a steam-sterilizable dissolved oxygen probe, which does not exhibit these shortcomings. Also, microprobes with a sensing tip of a few-micron size are to be developed for monitoring local concentrations of various fermentation substrates and products within the immobilized cell layers. These proposed sensors are especially useful for monitoring bioprocesses involving shear-sensitive mammalian cell cultures and immobilized cells, which gained significant industrial importance in recent years. A successful application of the microcircuit fabrication technology to constructing dissolved oxygen probes is expected to open wide ranging possibilities in fabricating sensors for bioprocess monitoring in general. By integrating several sensors on a single chip, many parameters can be monitored simultaneously. By incorporating enzymes and monoclonal antibodies, sensor chips can be made for detecting various small and large molecules involved in downstream as well as upstream bioprocesses. The proposed microprobes for immobilized cell applications will enable measurements of layers. Such measurements, which have not been possible previously, are expected to help scientists and engineers greatly in studying the physiological behaviors of the immobilized cells. The knowledge obtained can then be applied to optimitzing bioreactor operations and designs. The proposed sensors are thus expected to contribute significantly in advancing biotechnology, an area of national prominence.