Nanowire sensor shows promise for cardiac disease studies

The advance from a team including researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is said to show promise for cardiac disease studies, drug testing and regenerative medicine.

Electrical and computer engineering (ECE) Ph.D. student Hongyan Gao, first author of the paper published online by Science Advances, describes the invention as “a new tool for improved cardiac studies that has the potential for leading-edge applications in cardiac-disease experiments.”

Because the cell is a basic functional element in biology, its mechanical and electrical behaviours are two key properties that indicate cell state and consequently are important for health monitoring, disease diagnosis and tissue repair.

“A comprehensive assessment of cellular status requires knowledge of both mechanical and electrical properties at the same time,” said research team leader Jun Yao, ECE assistant professor and a biomedical engineering adjunct. These two properties are usually measured by different sensors, and the degree to which the cell’s function is disturbed increases with the number of sensors used.