Research Projects

The global biosensors market, valued at $25.5 billion, is projected to grow to $42.1 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of 10.2%. India's biosensor market, currently valued at $1 billion and growing over 12% annually, stands to benefit from innovations such as this proposed cell-based biosensing platform, which aligns with India's $5 trillion economy agenda. Cell-based biosensors have significantly advanced drug discovery, environmental monitoring, and food safety by leveraging the biological recognition capabilities of cells. These biosensors detect agents and assess their effects on living systems. Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), a common technique, studies the interfacial properties between cells and sensing layers. However, EIS mainly measures impedance changes due to cell attachment or growth, attributed to charged species, and lacks the capacity to capture dynamic cell-specific electrochemical interactions. Electrophysiological methods, including patch-clamp and multielectrode arrays (MEAs), are also applied in cell-based biosensing. While patch-clamp offers high-quality signals, it is invasive and low-throughput, limiting long-term studies. MEAs, though non-invasive and suitable for long-term monitoring, suffer from high impedance, which can obscure individual cell responses. This research addresses these limitations by leveraging nanotechnology and bioelectronics to develop an innovative in vitro cell-based biosensing platform using organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs). The OECT platform provides a label-free, non-invasive, and highly sensitive means to monitor real-time electrophysiological responses and interfacial dynamics of adherent mammalian cells, especially under drug-induced conditions. Designed to capture subtle cellular changes—such as membrane potential shifts, ion fluxes, and morphological variations—this technology aims to improve sensitivity over traditional methods. The project will investigate pharmacological effects on typical functional behaviours of cell, such adhesion, proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of adherent mammalian cells. By analyzing cell-platform interfacial dynamics, particularly changes in impedance, capacitance, and charge transport under drug exposure, and this study seeks to develop a comprehensive model that correlates drug effects with cellular responses. The hypothesis is that the OECT platform can accurately monitor both immediate and long-term cellular responses to drug treatments by detecting dynamic electrical changes at the cell-material interface. This platform has the potential to significantly advance drug screening, therapeutic evaluation, and personalized medicine, ultimately contributing to high-tech medical devices and healthcare innovation in line with industry demands.