Today Dr. Keese and I began an ECIS experiment with two different cell types, BSC-1 and D4BSC-1 cells. We first took two electrode arrays, an 8W1E (eight wells with one electrode in each well) and a 8W10E with ten electrodes per well, and flooded the inside of the wells with 10 mM of cysteine. Cysteine is an amino acid that reacts with the gold that plates each of the electrodes, allowing proteins to be adsorbed more quickly and inoculated cells to attach and spread easily. Each electrode is 250 µm and looks like an tiny white in the center of a gold circle. These electrodes connect to a larger electrode running down the center of the array, completing the circuit. Here is an image of an electrode array:
To graph our cells, the ECIS technology measures cell growth by sending currents of varying voltage through the electrode. The cells' rate of growth is measured through impedance, the amount of opposition to the electrical current. Sadly, one needs more than just a three-hour block of time, so next week at my internship I will see how the ECIS graph of our cells turned out. After 38 minutes, this is what the graph of our cells looked like:
I am also looking forward to next week's internship because I will be applying this process to my own BSC-1 cells that I cultured!
I think it's so cool how you are getting to know the technology you are working with and it seems like you're already becoming an expert! Do you find that anything we did last year in bio is helping you in your internship? It seems like a lot of what you are doing is bio-related, but your company is called Biophysics...is there any part of what you're doing now with the electrodes that is more physics based?
ReplyDeleteHey Kathryn! Yes, a lot of the things we learned in AP Bio about cell behavior and the cell cycle (like mitosis and cell growth) were helpful in the first few weeks of my internship. However, now we're moving into the physics realm which I'm definitely less well-versed in. Right now, I'm doing a lot of extra research on things such as capacitance and impedance which are key to understanding how ECIS measures cell behavior. Also, computer science is a big part of my internship, which is something I did not expect!
DeleteThanks, Kathryn.
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ReplyDeleteJulia, your blog post makes for an interesting read. You provide a nice overview of your work, complete with interesting details, and you include pictures to illustrate your writing. Keep up the great composition!
ReplyDeleteI am also excited to see how your cells fared!