An innovative laser-based sensing platform for realtime optical monitoring of oxygen

Known as "gas of life", molecular oxygen is a crucial metabolic factor. Especially in the field of cell biology, the content of ambient oxygen determines proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, it is a mandatory step to monitor and to control the oxygen concentrations in bioreactors for three-dimensional tissue engineering. From experience, the oxygen content of the culture medium does not reflect the circumstances within the cell tissue. Hence, it is important to develop advanced measurement techniques, which indicate the oxygen concentration within the cell carrier. To avoid interferences of the flow conditions and cell growth non-invasive or at least minimal-invasive detection techniques are strongly preferable. In this paper we will describe the principle of the oxygen determination, results from measurements in biological samples.