Punlished at: Advanced Functional Materials

Real-Time, Label-Free Monitoring of Cell Behavior on a Bioelectronic Scaffold

Abstract: 
Chronic wounds and severe burns pose a major clinical challenge, as they often heal slowly or fail to respond to conventional treatments. In addition, there is a critical lack of tools for personalized, continuous monitoring of the healing process. Although progress has been made in both regenerative biomaterials and wearable biosensors, their integration into a unified platform that enables in situ, real-time monitoring of wound healing remains a major challenge. Here, a multifunctional bioelectronic scaffold is introduced that enables label-free, real-time monitoring of cellular behavior directly on a regenerative material interface. The scaffold is fabricated by electrospinning polycaprolactone (PCL) functionalized with the bioactive, self-assembling peptide fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl-phenylalanine-arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (Fmoc-FRGD) to promote cell adhesion and proliferation. To enable electrical sensing, biocompatible MXene (Ti3C2TX) electrodes are conformally deposited onto the nanofibrous matrix, preserving its biological and structural properties. Using electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), the system provides continuous, non-destructive readouts of cell viability, adhesion, and surface coverage. Impedance parameters extracted at low frequencies strongly correlate with biologically relevant metrics, offering a quantitative means to track cellular dynamics without additional labelling. This work establishes a foundational bioelectronic scaffold for real-time monitoring of cell behavior, demonstrating potential for integration into regenerative therapies and advanced wound-care systems.

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