Modeling of Biological Interfacial Processes Using Thickness–Shear Mode Sensors

Biological interfaces and accompanying interfacial processes constitute one of the most dynamic and expanding fields in science and technology such as biomaterials, tissue engineering, and biosensors. For example, in biomaterials, the bio-interfacial processes between biomaterials and surrounding tissue plays a crucial role in the biocompatibility of the layer (Werner, 2008). In tissue engineering, cellular adhesion plays an important role in the regulation of cell behavior, such as the control of growth and differentiation during development and the modulation of cell migration in wound healing, metastasis, and angiogenesis (Hong et al., 2006). Performance of a biosensor is highly dependent on interfacial processes involving the sensor sensing interface and a target analyte. Therefore, quantitative information on the novel and robust immobilization of detector molecules is one the most important aspects of the biosensor field (Kroger et al., 1998). Thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors have been used in a variety of studies including interfacial biological processes, cells, tissue and properties of various proteins and their reaction (Cote et al., 2003). Phenomena such as cell adhesion (Soonjin et al., 2006.), superhydrophobicity (Sun et al., 2006, Roach et al., 2007), particle-surface interactions (Zhang et al.,2005), organic and inorganic particle manipulation (Desa et al., 2010) and rheological and interfacial properties of blood coagulation (Ergezen et al. 2007) were studied using TSM sensors. Due to the high interfacial sensitivity of TSM sensors, it has been shown that cell motility can be monitored by analyzing the noise of the TSM sensor response (Sapper et al., 2006). It has also been demonstrated that the number of motile sperm in a semen sample can be assessed in real-time using a flow-chamber integrated with a thickness shear mode sensor (Newton et al., 2007).