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.
