New device can help defend against novel biologi...( it attacks and the response of the affe...)

Because of its potential application for bioterrorism and chemical and biological warfare, the development of the device has been funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. But the microphysiometer also has important potential applications in detecting and assessing the toxicity of environmental pollutants. It also has many possible uses in basic biological research, its developers point out. The microphysiometer consists of a series of reservoirs, switches, rotary pumps and tiny chambers made from two thin membrane sheets that contain the cell colonies. The original unit also included a single sensor that measured changes in acidity (pH) in the extracellular liquid.

"Over the years, the Cytosensor has been used in a number of studies involving changes in pH," says Cliffel. "But its usefulness was limited because it could only measure a single variable. We realized that analytical chemists had recently developed new techniques that would allow us to simultaneously measure variations in several different key compounds."

Using these techniques, Cliffel's interdisciplinary research team chemistry post-doctoral assistants Sven Eklund and Dale Taylor working with senior research associate Eugene Kozlov and research professor Ales Prokop from chemical engineering developed the three additional sensors out of specially coated electrodes. They attached these to another commercial device that has recently come on the market, called a multipotentiostat, that allowed them to take simultaneous readings from the sensors.

One of the biggest problems they had with these modifications was due to the fact that one of the devices was designed to be controlled by a Windows computer and the other by a Macintosh. "In the beginning, there was a tremendous amount of cross talk between the two computers that we had to eliminate," Eklun
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Contact: David F. Salisbury
david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu
615-343-6803
Vanderbilt University
9-Jan-2004