Design and development of on-chip dep based antibiotic permeability device

Biosensors have a wide range of applications in different sectors such as food, environment, defense, and most importantly medicine. To increase the ease of fabrication, cost-effectiveness, durability, accuracy and many more other features of these devices, the researchers are still working to make them cheaper, smaller (portable), simple and more sophisticated at the same time. One of the best ways to do so is to develop an integrated lab on chip systems (LOC). LOC biosensors are, in particular, of great importance in medicine because they may provide physicians with a quicker response about the patient situation. LOC biosensors are nowadays designed to compose of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microfluidic networks and could be integrated with other sensor platforms to make the analysis more efficient in terms of cost, time and throughput. In this study, an integrated LOC biosensor comprising of a microelectrode chip and (PDMS)-based microfluidic chip has been developed for the rapid detection of permeability of antibiotics through the artificial cell walls, which represent the bacteria cell wall. This chip enables us to recognize the permeability of antibiotics into the artificial cells based on an electrochemical measurement. Because the detection is electrochemical, there is not any need for labeling of the molecules and also non-fluorescent antibiotics can also be studied, as opposed to the reports published earlier [7, 9]. Giant unilamellar lipid vesicles containing 1,2-diphytanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPHPC) lipids have been generated to act as model cell. Electrochemical measurements are performed by an LCR meter which infers the relationship between signal versus time. The measured signal recorded from the chip has been used to determine the change in concentration inside and outside the model bio particles. The whole chip size is approximately 38*26 mm which is quite easy to handle, overall cheap to make and sensitive.