Measuring and Modeling Macrophage Growth using a Lab-on-CMOS Capacitance Sensing Microsystem

We report on the use of a lab-on-CMOS biosensor platform for quantitatively tracking the growth of RAW 264.7 murine Balb/c macrophages. We show that macrophage growth over a wide sensing area correlates linearly with an average capacitance growth factor resulting from capacitance measurements at a plurality of electrodes dispersed in the sensing area. We further show a temporal model that captures the cell evolution in the area of interest over long periods (e.g., 30 hours). The model links the cell numbers and the average capacitance growth factor associated with the sensing area to describe the observed growth kinetics.