New Generation of Chips for Measuring Nerve Impulses

(ETH Zurich, September 28, 2020)

Researchers led by ETH Zürich Professor Andreas Hierlemann, together with Urs Frey and his colleagues from the ETH spin-​off MaxWell Biosystems, recently developed a new generation of microelectrode-​array chips that can be used to precisely excite nerve cells in cell cultures and to measure electrical cell activity. While the previous generations of chips only allowed the team to measure up to 50 nerve cells, the new chip enables them to simultaneously perform detailed measurements of more than 1,000 cells in a culture, as well as produce electrical images of the extension of their axons and determine how fast a nerve impulse is transmitted to the farthest reaches of the axons. Such comprehensive measurements are suitable for testing the effects of drugs, meaning that researchers can now conduct research and experiments with human cell cultures instead of relying on lab animals.