Finger-powered bead-in-droplet microfluidic system for point-of-care diagnostics

K. Iwai, R. D. Sochol, L. P. Lee, L. Lin

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, we present a versatile 'human-powered' microfluidic system that encapsulates microbeads within droplets to perform a medical diagnostics assay. Point-of-care (POC) microfluidic devices hold great promise for medicinal applications throughout the world. In particular, portable, low-cost systems that can be operated by non-medical personnel without electrical supplies are desired. Here we present a PDMS microfluidic device (2.8 cm x 1.9 cm x 0.8 cm) to achieve four distinct accomplishments: (i) pressing force from a single human finger simultaneously actuates the flow for three distinct solutions/ suspensions in parallel, (ii) functionalized "detection" microbeads (φ = 15 μ m) and biological reagents are simultaneously encapsulated together within microdroplets (φ ≈ 50 μm), and (iii) novel trapping architectures are utilized to ultimately immobilize the microbead-containing microdroplets for fluorescence detection. The presented system was employed to detect the inflammatory cytokine, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), via aptamer beacons conjugated to microbeads - which represents the first time IFN-γ detection has been achieved using microbeads inside microdroplets.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2012 IEEE 25th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, MEMS 2012
Pages949-952
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event2012 IEEE 25th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, MEMS 2012 - Paris, France
Duration: 29 Jan 20122 Feb 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)
ISSN (Print)1084-6999

Conference

Conference2012 IEEE 25th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, MEMS 2012
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period29/01/122/02/12

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