I-Corps Teams: Novel Lab on Chip QCM and ECIS Sensor with Multiple Applications

所提出的技术及其各种应用将对生物医学界产生重要影响，特别是在药物检测领域。开发药物的平均成本约为12亿美元，需要10-15年的开发时间。拟议的方法可以帮助减少这一成本和时间。 所提出的方法可以提供一种廉价和快速的检测方法来测试候选药物在动物前研究，这可以减少目前的成本超过5亿美元所需的将一种新药推向市场。这项技术是一种多参数传感器，耦合石英晶体微天平（QCM）和电细胞基质阻抗传感（ECIS）技术。基于谐振频率的变化，可以使用QCM谐振器来研究细胞单层的活力、粘附和粘弹特性。ECIS监测细胞膜阻抗值、细胞附着、生长和活力。通过结合两种传感方法，该技术扩展了细胞单层的监测方式，促进了交叉验证并减少了错误检测。该团队还开发了在传感器表面培养细胞进行扩展研究的方法，并使用该传感器研究乳腺癌细胞与健康牛主动脉内皮细胞（BAEC）相比如何附着在表面上，以及乳腺癌细胞如何在真实的时间内对不同分子做出反应。

The proposed technology with its various applications will have an important impact on biomedical community especially in the area of pharmaceutical drugs testing. The average cost for the development of a drug is approximately $1.2 billion dollars and requires 10-15 years of development. The proposed approach could help reduce this cost and time. The proposed approach could provide a cheap and fast assay to test drug candidates in pre-animal studies, which could reduce the current costs of over $500 Million required to bring a new drug to market.This technology is a multiparametric sensor that couples quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) techniques. The viability, adhesion, and visocoelastic properties of cell monolayers can be investigated using QCM resonators, based on variations of resonant frequency. ECIS monitors cell membrane impedance values, cell attachment, growth and viability. By combining two sensing methods, the technology expands the ways cell monolayers can be monitored and facilitates cross validation and decreases false detection. The team has also developed ways to culture cells on the sensor surface for extended studies, and has used the sensor to study how breast cancer cells attached to the surface in comparison to healthy bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs), and how breast cancer cells reacted to different molecules in real time.