Patent ID: 7129081

Claim:
A micromechanical apparatus for the detection of a biological activity of a microorganism, the apparatus comprising at least one micromechanical cantilever and means for identifying a change in a property of said cantilever, including said cantilever comprising a nutritive medium at least partly extending on its surface, handling means for bringing said microorganism in contact with said nutritive medium, said identifying means being designed to determine the deflection and/or the oscillation behavior of the cantilever resulting from or as a consequence of the added microorganism, said oscillation behavior being determined by at least one of the following quantities: (a) the shift in resonance frequency; (b) the mechanical damping of the resonance amplitude; (c) the phase shift between the cantilever excitation and oscillation, thus determining a change in a property of said cantilever and relating it to said biological activity of said microorganism.