Indigenous Patch Clamp Technique: Design of highly sensitive amplifier circuit for measuring and monitoring of real time ultra low ionic current through cellular gates
The importance of Noble prize winning Patch Clamp Technique is well documented. However, Patch Clamp Technique is very expensive and hence hinders research in developing countries. In this paper, detection, processing and recording of ultra low current from induced cells by using transimpedence amplifier is described. The sensitivity of the proposed amplifier is in the range of femto amperes (fA). Capacitive-feedback is used with active load to obtain a 20M#937; transimpedance gain. The challenging task in designing includes achieving adequate performance in gain, noise immunity and stability. The circuit designed by the authors was able to measure current in the range of 300fA to 100pA. Adequate performance shown by the amplifier with different input current and outcome result was found to be within the acceptable error range. Results were recorded using LabVIEW 8.5 for further research.
Keywords: drug discovery, ionic current, operational amplifier, patch clamp
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Moez Ul Hassan
Moez-ul-Hassan is a Research Officer in CRER. He is currently doing his MS-Control System from National University of Science and Technology (NUST). He has earned his B.E in Electronics from Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw (NED) University in 2009. His expertise is toward analog circuit designing, instrumentation, modeling of fuzzy controllers, renewable fuels, power electronics and energy conservation with practically implemented solutions. His job description in CRER includes energy efficient system modeling with sensitivity and predictability analysis.
Bushra Noman
Dr. Bushra Noman, Associate Professor, obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Karachi in Biotechnology. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for a Post Doc research at Cornell University in which her field of studies was nanotechnology. Currently she is coordinating the research activities at the SZABIST Stem Cell Research Centre. She is also coordinating the newly launched Biosciences undergraduate program at SZABIST.
Sarmad Hameed
Sarmad Hameed is a Research Officer in CRER. He is currently pursuing his Master Degree in Industrial Controls & Automation Program from Usman Institute of Technology. He has earned his Bachelor Degree in Electronics from Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in 2010. His areas of interest are digital circuit designing, programming; troubleshooting and industrial control systems design. His job description includes integration of renewable energy technologies into the electric power system.
Shahab Mehmood
Shahab Mehmood has done his M.Phil from Dr. Panjwani center for molecular medicine and drug research. He joined szabist’s stem cell research center (SCRC) as Junior research associate. Mr. shahab worked on ‘Exploring neuro-regenerative and natural or synthetic compound for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease” and “‘Setting up a high resolution microscopy system for testing different natural compounds in the treatment of different diseases such as Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s and immunological disease or cancer’- HEC, Funded” projects. His expertise includes tissue preparation for microscopy and various type of microscopy which include bright field microscopy, DIC(differential interference contrast), TIRF (total internal reflection) and fluorescence microscopy techniques involving immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemisty and normal histology techniques e.g. H/E staining Masson’s trichrome staining.
Asma Bashir
Ms. Asma Bashir obtained her Bachelor\'s in the field of Microbiology and later did her Master\'s in a discipline of Basic Microbiology from Department of Microbiology, University of Karachi. Currently she is working as a Senior Research Officer (SRO) at Stem Cell Research Center (SCRC), SZABIST where her assignment is to develop a complete spectrum of diagnostic procedures needed for running a successful Stem Cell Research Center with her special emphasis to carry out the screening of blood samples against infectious diseases to mark the samples as safe like HIV, Hepatitis B/C etc.
Moez Ul Hassan
Moez-ul-Hassan is a Research Officer in CRER. He is currently doing his MS-Control System from National University of Science and Technology (NUST). He has earned his B.E in Electronics from Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw (NED) University in 2009. His expertise is toward analog circuit designing, instrumentation, modeling of fuzzy controllers, renewable fuels, power electronics and energy conservation with practically implemented solutions. His job description in CRER includes energy efficient system modeling with sensitivity and predictability analysis.
Bushra Noman
Dr. Bushra Noman, Associate Professor, obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Karachi in Biotechnology. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for a Post Doc research at Cornell University in which her field of studies was nanotechnology. Currently she is coordinating the research activities at the SZABIST Stem Cell Research Centre. She is also coordinating the newly launched Biosciences undergraduate program at SZABIST.
Sarmad Hameed
Sarmad Hameed is a Research Officer in CRER. He is currently pursuing his Master Degree in Industrial Controls & Automation Program from Usman Institute of Technology. He has earned his Bachelor Degree in Electronics from Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in 2010. His areas of interest are digital circuit designing, programming; troubleshooting and industrial control systems design. His job description includes integration of renewable energy technologies into the electric power system.
Shahab Mehmood
Shahab Mehmood has done his M.Phil from Dr. Panjwani center for molecular medicine and drug research. He joined szabist’s stem cell research center (SCRC) as Junior research associate. Mr. shahab worked on ‘Exploring neuro-regenerative and natural or synthetic compound for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease” and “‘Setting up a high resolution microscopy system for testing different natural compounds in the treatment of different diseases such as Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s and immunological disease or cancer’- HEC, Funded” projects. His expertise includes tissue preparation for microscopy and various type of microscopy which include bright field microscopy, DIC(differential interference contrast), TIRF (total internal reflection) and fluorescence microscopy techniques involving immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemisty and normal histology techniques e.g. H/E staining Masson’s trichrome staining.
Asma Bashir
Ms. Asma Bashir obtained her Bachelor\'s in the field of Microbiology and later did her Master\'s in a discipline of Basic Microbiology from Department of Microbiology, University of Karachi. Currently she is working as a Senior Research Officer (SRO) at Stem Cell Research Center (SCRC), SZABIST where her assignment is to develop a complete spectrum of diagnostic procedures needed for running a successful Stem Cell Research Center with her special emphasis to carry out the screening of blood samples against infectious diseases to mark the samples as safe like HIV, Hepatitis B/C etc.
