Human Cell-Based Biosensor (HCB)

To address the US Army need in novel toxicity sensing methods using a platform compatible with the Environmental Sentinel Biomonitor (ESB) for testing Army field water with the goal of increasing toxicant sensitivity and reducing consumable size and cost, SPZ Technologies, LLC (SPZT) proposes to continue the development a Human Cell-Based Biosensor (HCB). The HCB is based on novel human cells lyophilization and reconstitution technology. The HCB uses an electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) technique and is composed of an ECIS chip and an ECIS reader. Its innovations will allow to make HCB device sensitive to all required toxicants in the desired sensitivity range, portable, inexpensive, easy to operate and be shelf-stable for up to 2 years under variety of environmental conditions. In Phase I, SPZT demonstrated the feasibility of the HCB by building a prototype that meet solicitation requirements including increased toxicant sensitivity compared to ESB and reduced consumable size and cost, portability, stability, and ease of administration. In Phase II, SPZT plans to refine, optimize, and validate HCB prototype demonstrating significant improvement in toxicant sensitivity, consumable size and cost, and cells stability under field conditions.