Microfluidics and biosensors as tools for NanoBioSystems research with applications in the Life Science

The fusion of nanotechnology and microtechnology to a field which could be called nanosystemintegration allows for the development of nanobiotechnological systems, which actually image the hierarchical organization of biological systems which utilize scales and laws of nature on all geometric levels. As one example of such systems may serve the design and the construction of a new class of micro-bioreactors. Here we have to construct and arrange fluidic devices and a biochemical environment in such a way, that living cells can survive in a three-dimensional, technical structure. Such organ-like cell structures promise to lead to new ways in medicinal chemistry for the determination of ADME/Tox properties of potential drugs. The integration of sensors, preferable novel AlGaN/GaN nanosensors, is within the construction principle. The latter nanosensors give the possibility to estimate non-destructively and label-free reactions of cells attached to the sensor surface. They are highly sensitive sensors and biocompatible to cells without any cytotoxic effect. In an advanced version the sensor should be implemented to give a better insight into cellular processes of the cells that are cultivated in the micro-bioreactor. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.