On-Chip Hardware for Cell Monitoring: Contact Imaging and Notch Filtering

摘要

The cell canary system will combine live bio-engineered cells with on-chip MEMS hardware. It will function by monitoring the response of many live cells to an external environment. Each cell, or cell colony, will be bio- engineered to fluoresce in response to a specific external pathogen. The fluorescence will occur through a FRET interaction with a quantum dot that labels a component of the pathway. If the cell or cell colony dies due to the presence of its target pathogen, then it will fluoresce as it dies; if the cell or cell colony dies due to other factors, then it will not fluoresce. The system will therefore act as a 'cell canary' system for specific, low-false- positive detection of pathogens. Our goal here is to demonstrate proof-of- concept for the on-chip fluorescence detection portion of the project.