Project number:
21046
Academic year:
2020-2021
Sponsor requirements:
Goal: This project is designed to develop a microfluidic chip, and accompanying system components, acting as a module, to rapidly and continuously separate blood platelets from whole blood.
Isolated platelets will then be:
1. flowed into a second downstream microfluidic chip that emulates the shear profile of a given cardiovascular implant or cardiovascular pathology, to determine their degree of subsequent shear-mediated activation; or
2. utilized in isolation to provide a continuous stream of purified platelets for analytic and research purposes.
Being able to rapidly and continuously isolate platelets readily from whole blood, without the need for centrifugation, filtration of other cumbersome preparative techniques, will be of great clinical and research utility and will address an unmet need. Integrating isolated platelets rapidly into a point-of-care system able to determine the degree of shear mediated platelet activation, will be a vital tool in critical care medicine decision making, particularly for patients with a wide range of cardiovascular implants -e.g. stents, percutaneous heart valves and mechanical circulatory support devices.
Principles of Operation: A microfluidic device will be fabricated which will employ the principle of hydrodynamic inertial focusing. Inertial focusing makes use of inertial forces generated as a result of fluidic flow within a confining microchannel. Shear-gradient lift and wall-induced lift generate a net lift force that drives particles toward equilibrium positions within the microchannel cross-section, turning an initial homogeneous microparticle stream into a highly focused microparticle stream within a short distance. The inertial force is mainly regulated by two parameters: the Dean number and the ratio of particle diameter to the hydraulic diameter of the microchannel. Manipulating these two parameters will allow blood cell separation and sorting.
Scope of the Project: The student team will develop a complete system in the form of a small instrument including the following modules:
1. a microfluidic microchannel chip module capable of platelet separation from remaining blood cells
2. a microfluidic chip module emulating coronary stenoses of varying degrees, a ventricular assist device of defined shear and a percutaneous heart valve with a microscopic capability capable of measuring platelet deformation under varying electric fields.
3. A reader module determining platelet activation – including hardware for detection, software, for analysis and a display for results presentation.
4. an interface and display system interacting with a smart phone
Isolated platelets will then be:
1. flowed into a second downstream microfluidic chip that emulates the shear profile of a given cardiovascular implant or cardiovascular pathology, to determine their degree of subsequent shear-mediated activation; or
2. utilized in isolation to provide a continuous stream of purified platelets for analytic and research purposes.
Being able to rapidly and continuously isolate platelets readily from whole blood, without the need for centrifugation, filtration of other cumbersome preparative techniques, will be of great clinical and research utility and will address an unmet need. Integrating isolated platelets rapidly into a point-of-care system able to determine the degree of shear mediated platelet activation, will be a vital tool in critical care medicine decision making, particularly for patients with a wide range of cardiovascular implants -e.g. stents, percutaneous heart valves and mechanical circulatory support devices.
Principles of Operation: A microfluidic device will be fabricated which will employ the principle of hydrodynamic inertial focusing. Inertial focusing makes use of inertial forces generated as a result of fluidic flow within a confining microchannel. Shear-gradient lift and wall-induced lift generate a net lift force that drives particles toward equilibrium positions within the microchannel cross-section, turning an initial homogeneous microparticle stream into a highly focused microparticle stream within a short distance. The inertial force is mainly regulated by two parameters: the Dean number and the ratio of particle diameter to the hydraulic diameter of the microchannel. Manipulating these two parameters will allow blood cell separation and sorting.
Scope of the Project: The student team will develop a complete system in the form of a small instrument including the following modules:
1. a microfluidic microchannel chip module capable of platelet separation from remaining blood cells
2. a microfluidic chip module emulating coronary stenoses of varying degrees, a ventricular assist device of defined shear and a percutaneous heart valve with a microscopic capability capable of measuring platelet deformation under varying electric fields.
3. A reader module determining platelet activation – including hardware for detection, software, for analysis and a display for results presentation.
4. an interface and display system interacting with a smart phone
Booklet description:
Project Goal: Develop a point-of-care system for portable, cost-effective and rapid platelet separation and concentration for analytic and preparative purposes.
ThromboSpiral is a portable and rapid microfluidic system for platelet separation and concentration in a clinical setting. It provides point-of-care analysis of platelet health in patients at risk of blood clots due to cardiac devices.
The system consists of three distinct modules. The first component separates platelets from whole blood using a compact centrifuge constructed from a disk drive, 3D-printed rotor and siphoning cap. The siphoning cap automatically removes the separated platelet-rich plasma from the other blood components and deposits it into 10mL chromatography columns for the gel filtration of platelets.
Once separated, the platelets are passed through shear-simulating microfluidic channels, which activate the platelets within predefined ranges of shear to simulate conditions found in common cardiac devices. Finally, these activated platelets pass through a second microfluidic chip that immobilizes fluorescently tagged platelets to be identified using a custom fluorescence detection device.
ThromboSpiral is a portable and rapid microfluidic system for platelet separation and concentration in a clinical setting. It provides point-of-care analysis of platelet health in patients at risk of blood clots due to cardiac devices.
The system consists of three distinct modules. The first component separates platelets from whole blood using a compact centrifuge constructed from a disk drive, 3D-printed rotor and siphoning cap. The siphoning cap automatically removes the separated platelet-rich plasma from the other blood components and deposits it into 10mL chromatography columns for the gel filtration of platelets.
Once separated, the platelets are passed through shear-simulating microfluidic channels, which activate the platelets within predefined ranges of shear to simulate conditions found in common cardiac devices. Finally, these activated platelets pass through a second microfluidic chip that immobilizes fluorescently tagged platelets to be identified using a custom fluorescence detection device.
Booklet description finalized
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