STACC-IT - Surface-Treated Adherent Cell Culture Chamber - Integration of Sensing Technology

The STACC-IT collaboration project has resulted in a disposable tray-stack product created by combining industrially manufactured, biocompatible, fully transparent cell culture vessels from cetto GmbH, with an embedded TU Dresden sensor platform based on thick-film technology, which is evaluated and displayed by the reusable, multimodular plug-and-play electronics from essentim GmbH. This product is used for the cultivation of adherent cells in
incubator under physiological conditions.

By equipping the sensors with screen-printed electrodes that can be read electrochemically, a platform can be established for a wide variety of electrode materials. Thanks to the simple and cost-effective production of screen-printed electrode materials, existing parameter-sensitive electrodes can be replaced with others, thereby enabling the creation of an electrode platform using the same injection-molding tools. There are already a wide variety of screen-printed electrode materials available for specific analytes such as anions or cations, and even more complex parameters—such as the solution’s conductivity and impedance—can already be detected. This enables more effective process optimization of adherent cell culture and facilitates reproducible upscaling. Furthermore, the planned project will, for the first time, make it possible to measure process parameters in cell culture flasks in real time using essentim technology and make this data available to users, thereby laying the foundation for process control and resource optimization.