Cell lysis on a microfluidic CD (compact disc)

Cell lysis was demonstrated on a microfluidic CD (Compact Disc) platform. In this purely mechanical lysis method, spherical particles (beads) in a lysis chamber microfabricated in a CD, cause disruption of mammalian (CHO-K1), bacterial (Escherichia coli), and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells. Interactions between beads and cells are generated in the rimming flow established inside a partially filled annular chamber in the CD rotating around a horizontal axis. To maximize bead-cell interactions in the lysis chamber, the CD was spun forward and backwards around this axis, using high acceleration for 5 to 7 min. Investigation on inter-particle forces (friction and collision) identified the following parameters; bead density, angular velocity, acceleration rate, and solid volume fraction as having the most significant contribution to cell lysis. Cell disruption efficiency was verified either through direct microscopic viewing or measurement of the DNA concentration after cell lysing. Lysis efficiency relative to a conventional lysis protocol was approximately 65%. In the long term, this work is geared towards CD based sample-to-answer nucleic acid analysis which will include cell lysis, DNA purification, DNA amplification, and DNA hybridization detection.     

A low-cost, disposable card for rapid polymerase chain reaction

A low-cost, disposable card for rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was developed in this work. Commercially available, adhesive-coated aluminum foils and polypropylene films were laminated with structured polycarbonate films to form microreactors in a card format. Ice valves [1] were employed to seal the reaction chambers during thermal cycling and a Peltier-based thermal cycler was configured for rapid thermal cycling and ice valve actuation. Numerical modeling was conducted to optimize the design of the PCR reactor and investigate the thermal gradient in the reaction chamber in the direction of sample thickness. The PCR reactor was experimentally characterized by using thin foil thermocouples and validated by a successful amplification of 10 copy of E. coli tuf gene in 27 min.     

Integration of microcolumns and microfluidic fractionators on multitasking centrifugal microfluidic platforms for the analysis of biomolecules

This work demonstrates the development of microfluidic compact discs (CDs) for protein purification and fractionation integrating a series of microfluidic features, such as microreservoirs, microchannels, and microfluidic fractionators. The CDs were fabricated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and each device contained multiple identical microfluidic patterns. Each pattern employed a microfluidic fractionation feature with operation that was based on the redirection of fluid into an isolation chamber as a result of an overflow. This feature offers the advantage of automated operation without the need for any external manipulation, which is independent of the size and the charge of the fractionated molecules. The performance of the microfluidic fractionator was evaluated by its integration into a protein purification microfluidic architecture. The microfluidic architecture employed a microchamber that accommodated a monolithic microcolumn, the fractionator, and an isolation chamber, which was also utilized for the optical detection of the purified protein. The monolithic microcolumn was polymerized “in situ” on the CD from a monolith precursor solution by microwave-initiated polymerization. This technique enabled the fast, efficient, and simultaneous polymerization of monoliths on disposable CD microfluidic platforms. The design of the CD employed allows the integration of various processes on a single microfluidic device, including protein purification, fractionation, isolation, and detection.      

Required technology breakthroughs to assume widely accepted biosensors

Silicon microsensors have been very successful over the last decade in a wide variety of applications. Although commercialization of silicon-based biosensors has been slow, careful applications of microfabrication technologies to the development of biosensors will drive the formation of many new markets. The most promising high-volume, emerging markets include clinical analysis, health care, and environmental. For example, the worldwide sales of clinical sensors are expected to reach several hundreds of millions by 2000, whereas the total worldwide market for biosensors is forecast to reach $1 billion by the year 2000. In this article, an overview of current and potential markets is presented with an emphasis on technological barriers to overcome before biosensors will become more widely accepted. We start by explaining the relative success of physical sensors compared to biosensors. Subsequently, we review several biosensor approaches and techniques and their associated problems. Finally, the markets that these sensors are meant to serve are analyzed.     

Anodische Prozesse an GaP-Elektroden vom n- und p-Typ

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Infrared controlled waxes for liquid handling and storage on a CD-microfluidic platform

A novel active valving technique, whereby paraffin wax plugs in microchannels on a centrifugal microfluidic platform are actuated using focused infrared (IR) radiation is demonstrated in this report. Microchannels were simultaneously or sequentially opened using a stationary IR source by forming wax plugs with similar or differing melting points. The presented wax plugs offer key advantages over current active valving techniques, including a less involved fabrication procedure, a simpler actuation process, and the ability to multiplex experiment with active valves. In addition, a new technique for automated liquid reagent storage and release on the microfluidic disc platform, based on the formation and removal of a wax layer, is demonstrated. Overall, the techniques presented in this report offer novel methods for liquid handling, separation, and storage on the centrifugal microfluidic disc platform.     

Anomalous mixing behaviour in rotationally actuated microfluidic devices

We analyse the characteristics of two-fluid mixing in T-shaped microchannels on rotating platforms (Lab-on-a-Compact-Disk framework). Three regimes of mixing were identified based on the distinct flow behaviour in each of these regimes. A diffusion-based mixing regime was obtained for low rotation speeds. A Coriolis force based mixing regime was observed for intermediate rotation speeds, which introduced some nontrivial aspects in the mixing behaviour, which was explained through scaling analysis. At very high rotational speeds, rapid mixing close to the junction was achieved by exploiting flow instabilities (instability based mixing). A good agreement between the theoretical calculations and the experimental observations was obtained.     

A Gurson-type criterion for porous ductile solids containing arbitrary ellipsoidal voids—I: Limit-analysis of some representative cell

Gurson (1977)'s famous model of the behavior of porous ductile solids, initially developed for spherical cavities, was extended by Gologanu et al., 1993, Gologanu et al., 1994, Gologanu et al., 1997 to spheroidal, both prolate and oblate voids. The aim of this work is to further extend it to general (non-spheroidal) ellipsoidal cavities, through approximate homogenization of some representative elementary porous cell. As a first step, we perform in the present Part I a limit-analysis of such a cell, namely an ellipsoidal volume made of some rigid-ideal-plastic von Mises material and containing a confocal ellipsoidal void, loaded arbitrarily under conditions of homogeneous boundary strain rate. This analysis provides an estimate of the overall plastic dissipation based on a family of trial incompressible velocity fields recently discovered by Leblond and Gologanu (2008), satisfying conditions of homogeneous strain rate on all ellipsoids confocal with the void and the outer boundary. The asymptotic behavior of the integrand in the expression of the global plastic dissipation is studied both far from and close to the void. The results obtained suggest approximations leading to explicit approximate expressions of the overall dissipation and yield function. These expressions contain parameters the full determination of which will be the object of Part II.     

A Gurson-type criterion for porous ductile solids containing arbitrary ellipsoidal voids—II: Determination of yield criterion parameters

The aim of this paper is to fully determine the parameters of the approximate homogenized yield criterion for porous ductile solids containing arbitrary ellipsoidal cavities proposed in Part I. This is done through improvements of the limit-analysis of some representative hollow cell presented there. The improvements are of two kinds. For hydrostatic loadings, the limit-analysis is refined by performing micromechanical finite element computations in a number of significant cases, so as to replace Leblond and Gologanu (2008)'s trial velocity field representing the expansion of the void by the exact, numerically determined one. For deviatoric loadings, limit-analysis is dropped and direct use is made of some general rigorous results for nonlinear composites derived by Ponte-Castaneda (1991), Willis (1991) and Michel and Suquet (1992) using the earlier work of Willis (1977) and the concept of “linear comparison material”. This hybrid approach is thought to lead to the best possible expressions of the yield criterion parameters. The criterion proposed reduces to (variants of) classical approximate criteria proposed by Gurson (1977) and Gologanu et al., 1993, Gologanu et al., 1994, Gologanu et al., 1997 in the specific cases of spherical or spheroidal, prolate or oblate cavities. An overview of the validation of this criterion through micromechanical finite element computations is finally presented.