AVS 49th International Symposium
    Biomaterials Tuesday Sessions
       Session BI-TuP

Paper BI-TuP2
Permittivity Responsive Interface for Biosensor in Tissue Engineering

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 5:30 pm, Room Exhibit Hall B2

Session: Biointerfaces and Surfaces I
Presenter: P.O. Bagnaninchi, Mc Gill University, Canada
Authors: P.O. Bagnaninchi, Mc Gill University, Canada
M. Tabrizian, Mc Gill University, Canada
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We have designed micro-porous host medium which fit with requirements for permittivity changing interface. The main application is the assessment of the growth of cells in micro-porous matrix for tissue engineering. These biointerfaces will be used with evanescent wave transducer or Inter Digital Capacitance since they are based on the change of permittivity in a surrounding medium. The complex biological medium is heterogeneous and our approach to describe the macroscopic dielectric behaviour of this mixture in terms of the bulk properties of the constituents is based on and derived from the effective medium theory; which is valid as long as the wavelength of electromagnetic wave is larger than the size of heterogeneities. Our method allow us to design permittivity responsive matrix and to improve the sensitivity of the biosensor in order to assess in a non-destructive way the growth of cells in micro-porous matrix. In this study the biointerface is characterized by complex permittivity measurement over a wide frequency range with the aid of a dielectric probe and network analyser.