The development of methods for the detection of aflatoxin BI (AFB(1)) in foods is a very important practice for ensuring food quality and safety. Most tests of AFB(1) are still conducted with conventional methods (i.e. antibody-based ELISA tests, high performance liquid chromatography HPLC); however biosensor methods are being developed to date as screening tools for 'field analysis. Compared to immunology/ELISA-like tests or chromatography methods, biosensors are able to provide rapid, sensitive, robust and cost effective quantitative methods for on-site testing. In this work we propose a cellular biosensor based on Vero cells, membrane engineered with anti-AFB1 antibody as the biological recognition element reacting with AFBi molecules on gold nanoparticle/screen printed electrodes (SPEs) (three electrode system). In order to culture the cells on the SPEs surfaces the working electrodes were coated with poly L-lysine to facilitate cell adhesion. The SPEs were connected to a potentiostat device through a transducer and chronoamperometric (CA) and cyclic voltammetric (CV) measurements were performed. Quantitative results obtained using the cellular biosensor method for AFB(1) were compared to those obtained using the HPLC method in pistachio samples spiked with AFB(1). The method displayed good sensitivity (r(2) = 0.87) and detection limit (0.5 ng/mL). (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.