Cell-Transistor-Hybrid Systems

Cell-Transistor-Hybrid Systems
Cell-semiconductor hybrid systems have potential to become important for the discovery of new pharmaceuticals and for use as whole cell sensors in drug screening. In addition it is feasible that they will be the future building blocks of artificial neuronal networks and that they will play a key role in interfacing traumatized nerves. The interface between live cells and solid state physics is one of the key issues of this work and is an important topic of our research. In order to bio-functionalise a solid surface in a way that the cell can recognize it as an adequate partner we have developed a broad range of experimental techniques to both modify and analyse this interface. To avoid atrophy of the cells and to control the cell-substrate coupling the device surface can be modified by the deposition of ultrathin polymer films. Using this approach the exploration of the development and plasticity of electrical interactions between single cells is feasible by a convenient non-destructive method of maintaining long term electrical contact with cultured cells, at a large number of recording sites. This project will be focussing on various topics: for drug discovery using genetically modified cells as transducer elements for molecular signals, studying the spatio-temporal signal spreading in two-dimensional cell monolayers (cardiac myocytes), and building up two-dimensional neuronal networks.