Development of a toxin screening multi-parameter on-line biochip system ‘Toxichip’

The development of a cell based biochip-sensing platform that examines the effects of toxic chemicals both electrically and optically is presented. The name of this sensing platform is called Toxichip. Toxichip aims to develop and promote alternative novel in-vitro testing methods for the monitoring of a vast array of toxins, thus alleviating the current demand for animal sacrifice while also permitting high throughput screening. Cell-based biosensors (CBBs), which treat living cells as sensing elements, are able to detect the functional information of biologically active analytes and also provide quantitative analysis. In general, they maintain living cells and observe the cellular physiological response after subjecting cells to toxin stimuli and verify the presence and the concentration of these stimuli. CBBs characterise with high sensitivity, excellent selectivity and a fast response time. There has been increased interest in the use of microelectronic biosensors that allow cellular activity to be analysed in vitro.