Electrochemical Biochip for Drug Screening At Cellular Level

Drug screening at cellular level has becomes an attractive field of research. Different researchers have tried to record cellular response to drugs by electrical or optical approach using both invasive and non-invasive methods. Silicon-based microelectrode integrated microchips are useful tools for in situ temporal recording of neurotransmitter releasing from neural cells. A microfabricated electrochemical biochip is presented in this paper. Using dopaminergic cells grown on the chip, the dopamine excytosis can be electrochemical amperomatric detected non-invasively from drug incubated dopaminegic cells by the microelectrode integrated on chip. This silicon-based electrochemical chip has been designed with an electrode array located on the cell culture chamber bottom. Each electrode is individually electrical controlled. MN9D and PC12 dopaminergic cell lines have been demonstrated on this chip for drug effects study. This silicon-based electrochemical microchip provides a non-invasive, in situ, temporal detection of dopamine exocytosis from dopaminegic cells, and holds the potential for applications in studying the mechanisms of dopamine exocytosis and drug screening. It is also extendable for other cell culture and drug effects study.