A Wire Patch Cell Exposure System for in vitro Experiments at Wi-Fi Frequencies

In order to study possible biological effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields generated by Wi-Fi devices, an exposure system based on a Wire Patch Cell (WPC) has been designed, fabricated and fully characterized. The system is suitable to expose, in the whole band of the Wi-Fi signal, cell monolayers plated on the bottom of four 35-mm Petri dishes, filled with 2 or 3 mL of biological medium. Results of numerical and experimental characterization indicate quite good efficiency values, with acceptable homogeneity of the dose. Being an open system, the WPC needs a shielding arrangement when placed inside the incubator during the experiments. It has been proven that this arrangement effectively shields the incubator and does not modify the scattering parameter S(11) of the structure