Heterogeneous immunoassays (HI) are an invaluable tool for biomarker detection and remain an ideal candidate for microfluidic point-of-care diagnostics. However, automating and controlling sustained fluid flow from benchtop to microfluidics for the HI reaction during the extended sample incubation step, remains difficult to implement; this leads to challenges for assay integration and assay result interpretation. To address these issues, we investigated the liquid reciprocation process on a microfluidic centrifugal disc (CD) to generate continuous, bidirectional fluid flow using only a rotating motor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapid, point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics for antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) are critical in combating the antimicrobial resistance epidemic. While new, alternative technologies are capable of rapidly identifying antibiotic resistance, traditional AST methods, where a patient sample is incubated with different antibiotics, remain the most reliable and practical in determining antibiotic effectiveness. Here, we demonstrate a novel sample incubation technique on a microfluidic centrifugal disc (CD) as a proof of concept automated sample processing platform for AST.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicromachines (Basel)
January 2016
We review the utility of centrifugal microfluidic technologies applied to point-of-care diagnosis in extremely under-resourced environments. The various challenges faced in these settings are showcased, using areas in India and Africa as examples. Measures for the ability of integrated devices to effectively address point-of-care challenges are highlighted, and centrifugal, often termed CD-based microfluidic technologies, technologies are presented as a promising platform to address these challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrofluidic discs have been employed in a variety of applications for chemical analyses and biological diagnostics. These platforms offer a sophisticated fluidic toolbox, necessary to perform processes that involve sample preparation, purification, analysis, and detection. However, one of the weaknesses of such systems is the uni-directional movement of fluid from the disc center to its periphery due to the uni-directionality of the propelling centrifugal force.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel, centrifugal disk-based micro-total analysis system (μTAS) for low cost and high throughput semi-automated immunoassay processing was developed. A key innovation in the disposable immunoassay disk design is in a fluidic structure that enables very efficient micro-mixing based on a reciprocating mechanism in which centrifugal acceleration acting upon a liquid element first generates and stores pneumatic energy that is then released by a reduction of the centrifugal acceleration, resulting in a reversal of direction of flow of the liquid. Through an alternating sequence of high and low centrifugal acceleration, the system reciprocates the flow of liquid within the disk to maximize incubation/hybridization efficiency between antibodies and antigen macromolecules during the incubation/hybridization stage of the assay.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe applications of microfluidic technologies in medical diagnostics continue to increase, particularly in the field of nucleic acid diagnostics. While much attention has been focused on the development of nucleic acid amplification and detection platforms, sample preparation is often taken for granted or ignored all together. Specifically, little or no consideration is paid to the development of microfluidic systems that efficiently extract nucleic acids from biological samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProper mixing of reagents is of paramount importance for an efficient chemical reaction. While on a large scale there are many good solutions for quantitative mixing of reagents, as of today, efficient and inexpensive fluid mixing in the nanoliter and microliter volume range is still a challenge. Complete, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFColloids Surf B Biointerfaces
July 2007
In this paper, we present the design and characterization of a novel platform for mechanical cell lysis of even the most difficult to lyse cell types on a micro or nanoscale (maximum 70 microL total volume). The system incorporates a machined plastic circular disk assembly, magnetic field actuated microfluidics, centrifugal cells and tissue homogenizer and centrifugation system. The mechanism of tissue disruption of this novel cell homogenization apparatus derives from the relative motion of ferromagnetic metal disks and grinding matrices in a liquid medium within individual chambers of the disk in the presence of an oscillating magnetic field.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this paper, centrifuge-based microfluidic platforms are reviewed and compared with other popular microfluidic propulsion methods. The underlying physical principles of centrifugal pumping in microfluidic systems are presented and the various centrifuge fluidic functions, such as valving, decanting, calibration, mixing, metering, heating, sample splitting, and separation, are introduced. Those fluidic functions have been combined with analytical measurement techniques, such as optical imaging, absorbance, and fluorescence spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, to make the centrifugal platform a powerful solution for medical and clinical diagnostics and high throughput screening (HTS) in drug discovery.
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