Monitoring adherent cell cultures in microtiter-plates by a wireless sensory system

The development of drugs, medicine products or chemicals demands high throughput systems and processes for the active substance testing at cells and tissues. Some systems, where Interdigitated Electrode Structures (IDES) are integrated in the bottom of the wells of customized microtiterplates, are already available. In this work we present a sensor system which is based on insets for state-of-the-art micro-titerplates. Each inset is carrying electronic circuitry and an IDES acting as sensor. These units work without a permanent energy source and communicate through a wireless interface with a reader based on Radio Frequency Identification RFID. Alterations of the cell metabolism are simultaneously reflected by changes of the electrical impedance which is measured by the sensors. Thus, this non-invasive monitoring system allows keeping track on the effects of toxic substances within the same cell culture up to two weeks. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.