High-Resolution Electrical Sensing of Surface Charges and Currents of Living Cells

本研究项目的目标是对活细胞的表面电荷和离子电流进行高分辨率的传感。这两种测量都将提供关于细胞膜和底层蛋白质的重要信息。了解膜蛋白在临床诊断中的关键作用需要具有高分辨率和分布式传感的测量工具。因此，这个项目的动机是需要小型化更高分辨率的生物测定，以及目前缺乏用于高级细胞研究的综合测量工具。以下的研究任务将进行(i)电子传感器监测囊泡运输和细胞间通讯的电子和实时，（ii）电生理点同时记录并行离子电流，（iii）超低噪声放大器与相关双采样（CDS）敏感信号读出处理离子电流，以及（iv）一个新的混合方法来模拟单个离子通道，细胞或细胞组装内的生理变化。该综合系统将为细胞研究提供前所未有的空间和时间分辨率。综合教育和外展组成部分提出的调查预计将大大提高女性学生在电气工程的代表性，并为工程师打开生物技术研究的途径。

The objective of this research project is to perform high-resolution sensing of surface charges and ionic currents of living cells. Both these measurements will provide important information about the cell membrane and underlying proteins. Understanding the pivotal role of membrane proteins in clinical diagnostics requires measurement tools with high-resolution and distributed sensing. Thus, this project is motivated by the need to miniaturize bioassays with higher resolution and the present lack of integrated measurement tools for advanced cellular studies. The following research tasks will be undertaken (i) electronic sensors to monitor vesicle trafficking and intercellular communication electronically and at real-time, (ii) electrophysiology sites to simultaneously record ionic currents in parallel, (iii) ultra low-noise amplifier with correlated-double-sampling (CDS) sensitive signal readout to process ionic currents, and (iv) a new hybrid approach to model physiological changes within a single ion-channel, cell or cellular assembly.The integrated system will provide an unprecedented level of spatial and temporal resolution for cellular studies. The integrated education and out-reach components proposed investigation are expected to greatly improve the representation of female students in electrical engineering and open avenues of biotechnology research for engineers.