A Highly UV-transparent Fused Silica Biochip for Sensitive Hepatotoxicity Testing by Autofluorescence

Fabrication and application of a non-fluorescent and UV-transparent microfluidic biochip in fused silica that allows sensitive autofluorescence detection are described. The biochip is particularly useful in cell-based assays where the most informative autofluorescence signals from the cells reside in the ultraviolet spectral range and where plastic labware materials commonly used in cell culture work severely disturb such measurements. In this study the fused silica biochip was used for measuring intrinsic autofluorescence from liver cells in order to assess hepatotoxic effects of drugs. The assessment assay was carried out with the human liver cell line HepG2 under perfusion conditions in the microfluidics of the biochip. The autofluorescence from the.liver cells exposed to quinidine was readily recorded without background disturbance and correlated well with reference toxicity data

Label-free bioaffinity detection using terahertz technology

© 2002 IOP PublishingWe report the first use of differential terahertz time-domain spectroscopy for bioaffinity sensing. Binding is observed by measuring the transmission of a thin layer of biotin bound to the sensor protein avidin. We demonstrate the THz wave transmission of a sub-micron-thick film and sensitivity to 0.1 µg cm−2 of biotin. These results point the way for a host of biosensor applications using T-rays, or pulsed far-infrared (FIR) radiation.Samuel P Mickan, Abdellah Menikh, Haibo Liu, Carmen A Mannella, Robert MacColl, Derek Abbott, Jesper Munch and X-C Zhan