At ZP, we believe that the future of tissue engineering/cell culture is the measurement and ultimately the control of the cells’ environment, including: pH, glucose, oxygen, lactate, and other analytes.
The measurement of a cells environment can be achieved through biosensors. In this note we discuss biosensors for cell culture type experiments.
Biosensors can offer:
• Quantitative data- the concentration of analytes.
• Longitudinal data – how concentration changes as a function of time.
• Spatial data – An array of sensor, or sensors placed within flows can give the spatial resolution of how an analyte such as pH changes both temporally and spatially.
Quantitative data
The range of electrochemical biosensors suitable for monitoring the environment of cells has increased considerable in recent times.
Biosensors, including the ZP Glucose Sensors, provide a signal that is proportional to the analyte. In the figure below we show the signal as a function of glucose concentration, see Figure 1.0.0.
Longitudinal data
Biosensors can operate for extended periods, for example the glucose sensor from ZP has an operational life greater than 90 days, see adjacent image, and so ZP sees well designed sensors operating throughout the cell-based experiment.
Spatial data
Very recently biosensor arrays of nine biosensors haven been reduced to sensing areas less than 12 mm x 12 mm, see adjacent figure, and further miniaturization is also possible.
The biosensors from ZP can also provide spatial resolution, where an array of sensors provides a time course and spatial resolution of the analyte. The ZP biosensor array technology most matured in this respect is the ZP pH sensor arrays.
