Remote Cell Growth Sensing Using Self-Sustained Bio-Oscillations

A smart sensor system for cell culture real-time supervision is proposed, allowing for a significant reduction in human effort applied to this type of assay. The approach converts the cell culture under test into a suitable “biological” oscillator. The system enables the remote acquisition and management of the “biological” oscillation signals through a secure web interface. The indirectly observed biological properties are cell growth and cell number, which are straightforwardly related to the measured bio-oscillation signal parameters, i.e., frequency and amplitude. The sensor extracts the information without complex circuitry for acquisition and measurement, taking advantage of the microcontroller features. A discrete prototype for sensing and remote monitoring is presented along with the experimental results obtained from the performed measurements, achieving the expected performance and outcomes.This work was supported in part by the Spanish founded Project: Integrated Microsystems for cell culture test (TEC2013-46242-C3-1-P): Spanish, co-financed with FEDER program. We would like to thank the Citoquímica Ultraestructural Group (BIO132) of Cell Biology Department, University of Seville, for its experimental help to develop the cell culture experiments.Peer reviewe