Laser light intensity-modulated cell growth rate monitoring biosensor.

In this article, a low-cost light intensity-modulated biosensor for in situ growth monitoring of microbes is reported. Saccharomyces cerevisiae in YPD medium (yeast) and Escherichia coli in Luria Bertani medium (E. coli) are used in this study as the microbes. A matched wavelength of light source being used to interact with the microbes, and it has been gets absorption or scatter as the growth of the microbe increases. The system is realized by embedding and arranging all the required components as a single device. The obtained sensor response for yeast and Escherichia coli illustrates the linear temporal response of light intensity with a fitting factor of 0.99 within the limits, with ± 5% of error. This sensor key advantage is that the real-time microbe growth can be monitored without taking out the sample from the prepared culture. The designed biosensing system is simple and of low cost, and the obtained results are following the response of standard instruments. Thus, the proposed biosensor system is well suitable for the in situ study of growth rate monitoring applications of the microbes in medical and biotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]