4^th International Conference and Exhibition on Biosensors & Bioelectronics September 28-30, 2015 Hilton Atlanta Airport, USA

Biography:

Yu Lei is a Castleman Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, USA. Dr. Lei obtained his PhD degree in 2004 at the University of California-Riverside in Chemical and Environmental Engineering. His current research combines biotechnology, nanotechnology, and sensing technology, especially as applied to the development of gas sensors, electrochemical sensors, and biosensors.

Abstract:

A (bio)sensor is an analytical device which integrates a chemical or biological recognition element with a physical transducer to generate a measurable electrochemical, optical, acoustical, mechanical, calorimetrical, or electronic signal proportional to the concentration of the analytes. It has been studied intensively and utilized extensively in various applications ranging from public health and environmental monitoring to homeland security and energy-related area. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder and a major world health problem. As stated by International Diabetes Federation, there are over 382 million people worldwide living with diabetes in 2013. Due to the extremely large financial burden caused by diabetes and its serious health complications, the detection of glucose is becoming incredibly important in managing diabetes and reducing its financial costs. This presentation will first outline the challenges for in vitro and in vivo glucose monitoring in battling diabetes, and then discuss our recent research activities for the development of enzymatic and non-enzymatic glucose sensors based on electrochemical and optical methods. Finally, the future research direction for in vivo, long-term glucose monitoring will be laid out and discussed.

Biography:

Siu-Tung Yau has received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Cleveland State University. He has experience in nanostructures, protein crystallization, biosensors/bioelectronics and renewable energy.

Abstract:

Conventional methods for the detection of bacteria such as ELISA and PCR require a series of culture-based bacteria amplification steps in order to increase the number of the target in the sample to a detectable level. The amplification process makes conventional methods time- and labor-consuming. Detection of protein biomarkers using ELISA is known to provide unsatisfactory sensitivity. Recently, the author has invented Field-Effect Enzymatic Detection (FEED), a novel bio-sensing technique, in which an external gating voltage VG is used to provide intrinsic amplification of the signal current of an enzymatic biosensor by inducing an interfacial electric field to modulate interfacial charge transfer. The quantum mechanics-based technique was used to obtain the detection limit of molecular analytes on the zepto-molar (10-21M) level. The novel method has been elucidated in several publications. The author has incorporated FEED with the immunosensing technique to demonstrate a novel detection platform for biomarkers and bacteria. The detected biomarkers include CA125, PSA in serum and AMACR (a novel marker for prostate cancer) in serum and urine. The PSA and AMACR detections were performed at the femto gram/mL level. The two detected bacteria are E. coli and Shigella. E. coli was detected in milk and meat juice with detection limits of the order of 10 CFU/mL. Because of the intrinsic amplification provided by FEED, the detection was performed without the culture-based amplification, resulting in a significantly shortened assay time of 1 hr. In these works, FEED provided ultrasensitivity due to its intrinsic amplification whereas the immunosensing technique provided a high degree of substance selectivity. This detection platform sets up a new approach in bio-detection technology, which provides ultra-low detection limit, short assay time and high specificity. It will lead to low-cost detection devices/systems for point-of–care applications. The detection platform will find a range of applications in food safety, public health, environment protection and homeland security.

Biography:

Will be updated shortly...!

Abstract:

Microelectronics play an increasing role in biomedical technology and healthcare delivery and data collection. System optimization for decreased size and power are critical for continued adoption of such technologies, and advanced packaging of microelectronic circuits and sensors will play an expanding role in the ability of patients and healthcare providers to unobtrusively utilize new electronics systems. The semiconductor industry has generally been focused on relatively straightforward integration of similar materials and processes to achieve cost benefits and performance increases.Traditionally, this integration has been microelectronics packaging in the form of wirebonds, bumping, or more recently chip stacking with TSV (Through-Silicon-Via). However, these approaches leaves much to be desired for the integration of disparate materials, process technologies and sensor systems requiring low latency, wide bandwidth and various substrate materials. An alternative to these approaches is “Quilt Packaging” interconnect technology, which delivers monolithic-like electrical performance and enabling sub-micron chip-to-chip alignment accuracy. Quilt Packaging is currently being developed for multiple applications in biomedical applications, specifically MEMs sensors and optical systems integration.

Biography:

Woo Hyoung Lee, P.E. is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering at the University of Central Florida. He received his PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2009. He has published more than 17 papers in reputed journals and is serving as an editorial board member of the Austin Journal of Biosensors & Bioelectronics. His current research interests include electrochemical environmental microsensors for biofilm and corrosion investigation, electrocoagulation for emulsion breaking, and greywater reuse.

Abstract:

Orthophosphate is used as a corrosion inhibitor in drinking water utilities by forming a microscale passivating surface layer onmetal pipes of distribution systems. However, phosphate consumption by metal pipes and the associated role of phosphate on water chemistry dynamics of metal oxidants remain unclear. A previous cobalt-based potentiometric phosphate microelectrodeshowed oxygen interference, limiting its use in environments where oxygen gradients are found. The limit of detection (LOD) was relatively high for drinking water application.This research presents two enhanced amperometric cobalt-based sensors that lack oxygen interference with an improvedLOD: a cobalt-based microelectrode (~15 µm of tip diameters) and a nano-textured phosphate sensor. For the microelectrode, at an applied potential of -400 mV (vs. Ag/AgCl), the sensor showed an excellent linear response to various phosphate concentrations (10-2 to 10-8 M), with a sensitivity of 18 pA/pCand an improved LOD of 0.31 ppb,and was not affected by the presence of oxygen. A novel Cu-Co based nano-structured sensor was fabricated by pulsed electroplating Cu-Co alloy on the surface of a gold electrode. The amperometric response without oxygen interference of the Cu-Co nano-structured phosphate sensor was found at -250 mV with a sensitivity of 14.7±0.3 mA/log[H2PO4- ]. The enhanced phosphate microelectrode was successfully applied for quantifying and evaluating the phosphate effect on the corrosion kinetics of ductile iron coupons in simulated drinking water systems by measuring phosphate microprofiles. The cobalt-based phosphate sensorswill greatly improve our understanding of phosphate’s impact on drinking water pipelines andvarious water systems.

Biography:

Amir Sanati-Nezhad received his MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from Amir Kabir University of Technology, Iran and PhD degree from the Optical Bio-Microsystems Laboratory, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Canada. He did two years of postdoctoral research in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the McGill University and Harvard– MIT Health Sciences and Technology for development of microdevices for single cell analysis and tissue engineering. His current research interests include BioMEMS, bioinspired microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, tissue engineering and single cell analysis. He is currently an assistant professor in the department of Mechanical and Manufacturing with a joint affiliation to Center for Bioengineering Research and Education and Biomedical Engineering program at University of Calgary. He has a research focus on development of organ on chip platform using integrated microfluidics and tissue engineering approaches for disease modeling and drug discovery.

Abstract:

Detection of oxygen concentration is essential to regulate cellular functions in both normal physiology and disease conditions for application in bioassays, tissue engineering and particularly for organ-on-chip platforms that needs long-term and sensitive monitoring. In addition, recent advances in integrated microfluidic systems necessitate the development of flexible and low-cost oxygen sensors that can be rapidly integrated to the system. Amperometric electrochemical and luminescent-based oxygen sensors are known as the two predominant sensing technologies for real-time and sensitive detection of dissolved oxygen in bioreactors. However, amperometric method suffers from difficulty in miniaturization, signal variation at various flow rate and consumption of dissolved oxygen during the sensing process. Luminescent oxygen sensor is expected to be an ideal method for real-time and long-term detection of dissolved oxygen. Here, we developed an optical-based oxygen sensor for long-term and real-time monitoring of dissolved oxygen concentration in a bioreactor. The sensor relies on reduction in luminescent intensity of a sensing dye due to oxygen quenching of the emitting excited electronic state. We chose ruthenium tris(2,2'-dipyridyl) dichloride hexahydrate (RTDP) as the optical sensing element due to its low photobleaching, long lifetime, and linear Stern-Volmer plots. Shadow masking technique was used to pattern the Rt dye layer on a hydrophilic cover slide. A thin layer of PDMS (5 μm) was then coated onto the patterned dye layer to protect the dye from direct contact with the culture media and to inhibit contamination. The channel of top PDMS fluidic layer was aligned with the patterned dye layer and plasma bonded to the cover glass. To excite the dye, a high power light (200 mW) along with a 455 nm bandpass excitation filter were assembled over the microfluidic chip. A 610 nm highpass filter was assembled at the bottom layer to filter the light emitted to the integrated photodiode. The photodiode-based detection method enabled detection of overall fluorescence signal emitted from the oxygen-sensitive dye in form of an electrical current. An electric circuit was integrated to convert the current to a sensible electrical voltage which was read out using the LabView software. The response of the photodiode to the change in fluorescent intensity under different concentrations of oxygen gas and dissolved oxygen in both DI water and culture media was detected. The sensor was found to be more sensitive to the dissolved oxygen in DI water than in media. The electrical circuit, the thickness of the PDMS layer, the amount of dye patterned and the optical detection platform was optimized to make it sensitive enough for organ-on-chip applications. The sensitivity of the sensor was estimated to be 0.67 millivolt per % oxygen. We used the sensor to detect the dissolved oxygen concentration in a HepG2 cell cultured bioreactor for two days.

Biography:

Abstract:

With more efforts in recent years, “nanoprobes” have been widely developed and extensively utilized for the labeling of biomolecules used for the detectionof other various biological species of medical, pharmaceutical and environmental interest. In particular metal nanoparticles (such as AuNPs and AgNPs) and quantum dots have been used for the development of different biosensing platforms based mostly in electrochemical, optical and mass detection. However, the use of asymmetric nobel-metal nanoparticles as thermal labels in biosensing was not explored before the development of HEATSENS®. The present advanced HEATSENS® sensing platform combines the peculiar properties of bioengineered Au-nanoprisms/nanorods of converting the IR light energy in quantifiable thermal energy with high efficiency, with their surface functionalization with detection antibodies. The combination of the use of asymmetric metal-nanomaterial with their oriented biofunctionalization, leads to an improvement of the sensing of the molecule of interest rising specificity and sensitivity up to the atto-molar concentration. Besides, due to the characteristic of converting the IR light to thermal energy, HEATSENS® sensing platform does not present interferences as it could happen using sensing methodologies based on electrochemical or optical detection. More in detail, HEATSENS®sensing platform has been applied to the detection of molecules of interest in the agro-food field, reaching the detection of analytes in complex matrices in the sub-femtomolar concentration in a short time of analysis. The characteristics of HEATSENS®sensing platform will lead to the development of low-cost detection devices/systems for point-of–care applications enable to be used in several other application fields such as public health, environment protection and homeland security.

Biography:

After receiving his Ph.D. for his research in Single-Molecule-Biophysics in Germany and being published in high impact journals such as EMBO, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Nanotechnology, Ali Tinazli was active in Corporate Development at Applied Biosystems (now: Thermo Fisher) and covered the European landscape in biotech and in-vitro diagnostics innovation. In 2008, Dr. Tinazli, joined Sony DADC (part of SONY Corporation) co-started the new biomedical business unit and built the Americas business of Sony DADC BioSciences. As a member of the management team at Sony DADC BioSciences, he is heading the Americas business based out of Cambridge, MA.

Abstract:

Smart Consumables based on polymer materials with nano/microscale or supreme optical features are prerequisites for emerging applications in the biomedical markets as in in-vitro diagnostics. Single molecule detection techniques based on fluorescence read-out methods are a prominent example for a number of commercial products. The need for highly parallel read-out of electrical signals requires the use of CMOS components. Such concepts are required for example in DNA sequencing technologies. Hence, the functional integration of CMOS components in microfluidic, polymer chip architectures is becoming of key importance in a successful product development. The increasing complexity of such new products requires new manufacturing technologies. Sony DADC BioSciences provides in its partnering business a deep know-how in development, manufacturing and supply of polymer-based smart consumables to OEM partners. Specializing in customized mass manufacturing of highly sophisticated consumables, Sony DADC actively applies expertise in innovation to offer state-of-the-art solutions to the biomedical industry.

Biography:

Kostogorova-Beller’s educational background spans a broad range of interdisciplinary materials science, including metallurgical (B.S.), chemical (M.S.), and materials engineering (Ph.D.). She has gained skills in nanomanufacturing under the guidance of well-known expert Prof. Dzenis (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) during her postdoctoral appointment. Currently, she is a Research Scientist at National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University; and leads a research in the areas of sensing skin design for morphing wing concept, nanomaterials, structural health monitoring, and lightning-materials interaction. She has published a number of scientific articles, presented at conferences, and received several research and industry grant awards.

Abstract:

This work explores a novel approach towards the detection of electrical and chemical activity originating from biological nerve tissue using a wireless interface based on NASA SansEC (without electrical connections) Sensing Technology. The concept takes advantage of the unique ability of a resonant spiral to characterize an electromagnetic signature response for material media in proximity to such sensors. During the propagation of action potentials in living axons and neural pathways there is an emergence of a magnetic-field component that can couple to the electromagnetic field of an appropriately tuned SansEC sensor. This coupling produces an observable change to the sensor’s response within its fundamental or harmonic resonance spectra. To demonstrate feasibility of this proposal, system design experimentation was conducted on a non-biological assembly consisting of a transmission-line submerged in an aqueous-solution simulating a nerve surrounded by interstitial fluid. An arbitrary function generator provided the action potential stimulus while a SansEC sensor was placed in proximity to but external the assemblage. Interrogation was accomplished using a near-field loop antenna connected to a network analyzer. The presence of the fluid was detectable by a measurable frequency shift of the sensor resonance. Chemical changes in the fluid using common ionic concentrations of Na+, K+, and Cl- were similarly detectable as smaller frequency shifts. Results also demonstrate that detectable coupling of simulated nerve impulses and electrical activity is possible. This research lays a foundation towards the realization of practical sensing systems utilizing SansEC sensor technology for detecting and quantifying electrochemical activity in living organisms.

Biography:

Will be updated shortly....!

Abstract:

Of late, there has been a growing interest in biotechnology among the researchers. A multi-disciplinary approach is needed to meet the requirement of biotechnology industries. Bioprocesses such as production of fermented foods with the help of micro-organisms, has been known in ancient civilization. Bioprocesses have been developed for large number of commercial products like industrial alcohol, organic solvent, baker’s yeast, etc. and special products like antibiotics, therapeutic proteins and vaccines. Bioprocess operations make use of microbial, animal and plant cells and components of cells such as enzymes, to manufacture new products and to destroy harmful wastes. These processes require effective control techniques due to increased demand on productivity, product quality and environmental responsibility. It is typically so in the case where the biomaterials used in the process are costly and required stringent control over product formation as in animal cell culture. Bioreactor is where the bioprocess operation takes place and its design and controlled operation are very important for several aspects of production like purity, quantity, efficiency, safety, etc. Basically, there are two kinds of bioprocesses; one aerobic and the other anaerobic, depending on whether oxygen is required or not required to carry out the bioprocess operation. There are several types of bioreactors designed and used in the laboratory as well as in large scale industrial applications. Some of these are continuous stirred tank, bubble column, airlift, see-saw and packed bed reactors. As their names indicate, they are meant for aerobic bio-reaction processes. See-saw bioreactor has been developed at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Bio-reaction is a slow process and takes days or at least hours, to complete. Nevertheless, there is some heat generation (or absorption) and change in pH value of the bioreactor fluid over the time takes place. Temperature and pH values of the bioreactor fluid are considered as environmental variables and need to be controlled within a tight band for the micro-organisms to survive. Besides chances of contamination, organic in nature, are there and require to be monitored. Dissolved oxygen content of the bioreactor fluid is probably the most important single process variable for maximizing the product yield. The fan speed in the continuous stirred tank reactor or the see-sawing rate in the see-saw bioreactor acts as the corresponding control variable. Thus, a bio-reaction process requires continuous measurement of the dissolved oxygen content, temperature and pH value of the bioreactor fluid. There are other variables which cannot be as easily measured. If a mathematical model of the bio-reaction process could be developed, then one could go for observer based ‘soft sensing’.

Biography:

Will get updated shortly....!

Abstract:

The main possible honey fraud is the addition of various sugar syrups. But there are also other types of fraud, such deception on the geographical and/or botanical origin product. Provide a product of the hive with full authenticity is therefore crucial for the preservation of beekeeping. In this pursuit, a potential technique based Voltammetric Electronic Tongue (V- ET) was used to detect adulterants such as Glucose Syrup (GS) and Saccharose Syrup (SS) in honey. GS and SS were each mixed with authentic honey samples in the following ratios: 2%, 5%, 10% and 20%. Furthermore, V- ET was employed to classify honey samples from different geographical and botanical origins. The data obtained were analyzed by three-pattern recognition techniques: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Cluster Analysis (CA), and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). As a result, these methods enabled the detection of honey adulterations with sugar syrups at a down adulteration level of 2%; and it was possible to discriminate among thirteen honeys of different geographical origins and seven honeys of different botanical origins based on PCA, while good results were shown by CA and SVMs, too. For this reason, V- ET is a practice and rapid method for application in honey quality assessments, including detection of adulterated samples and classification of geographical/botanical origins.

Biography:

Hussain A Alzaher has pursued his PhD (with honors) from the Ohio-State University in March 2001. He is a full Professor with KFUPM. His recent interests include designs of very low frequency filters for biomedical instrumentation and sensor systems. His research interests include applications of electronic circuit techniques for multi-standards mobile phones (4G and 5G), Bluetooth, WLAN, WiMAX, and Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H). He has owns several US patents. He is the author and co-author of approximately 60 journal papers with more than 900 citations. He also serves as an Editorial Board Member and a reviewer of repute.

Abstract:

Low frequency filters has wide range of applications in biomedical signal processing. It is particularly desired for biopotential acquisition systems to eliminate powerline frequency disturbance from the measured signal using analog notch filters. Such interference concurrently occurs within the same band where biopotential and other physiological signals have most of their energy. Examples include ECG, electroencephalogram (EEG), and electromyogram (EMG) recordings. The work assesses the available solutions. Then, it presents a new notch filter design avoiding common drawbacks and providing improved characteristics. The proposed notch filter incorporates R-2R ladders allow the realization of large time constant in small area. The main features of the presented solution include (i) Integration into a single chip; (ii) Low power consumption in order to reduce amount of heat, decrease battery size and increase battery life and; (iii) High linearity to avoid generating harmonics that could be more dangerous than the powerline interferences. In fact, low noise requirement (to process the weak physiological signals) would be relieved in presence of pre-amplification and would converge to requirement; (iv) Programmability is also incorporated to adjust the filter zero frequency compensating for inaccurate component values, process variations, and temperature changes. The proposed filter design is systematically identified to be the optimum. Main claims are supported with analytical proofs. Also, the operation and results are verified through IC fabrication and experimental results. Experimental results show significant improvement in terms of power consumption and linearity compared with the available solutions. Also, measurement validations using real biomedical signals are provided.

Biography:

Luis Moreno Hagelsieb, born in Guadalajara, México, Chemical Engineer (Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara 1989), MSc in Electrical Engineering (CINVESTAV México 1999). From 1992 to 2001 he worked as a new product introduction, problem solving, line transfers, and product/process design at Motorola Inc in Mexico in semiconductors processing. He finished his PhD and worked as researcher at the microelectronics department Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium until 2012, emphasizing his work on biosensors design and commercialization. He has also experience in radiation and optical sensing (Canberra Semiconductors)

Abstract:

Simple, low cost and low consumption devices are required in medical and agronomical applications and environmental monitoring. Producing a faster response, high response, highly sensitive, highly selective sensor devices for application in bacteria detection have become very critical. Current detection system takes minimum 2 hours (expensive devices) to one week, while some fast detectors can make detections in less than an hour but only when the concentrations of the target is high. In previous works at “Université catholique de Louvain”, high-performance sensors and MEMS with; very low power consumption and broad applications, were developed. In collaboration with its microelectronics laboratory, aluminum oxide interdigitated capacitors (AOIC) have been developed and successfully tested on DNA hybridization and on bacteria and spores detection test as well as on breathing monitoring. All of them have shown comparable results to the state of the art using existing standard biological protocols procedures. The related projects included also the deposit of nanoparticle functionalized nanostructured metal oxides (Al2O3, WO3, SnO2, and HfO2) directly onto an optimized AOIC with the aim of producing a high response, highly sensitive, highly selective sensor devices for application in bacteria and in gas detection (i.e. breathing and environmental). The market trends are as well analyzed. This presentation will cover the complete story about this biosensor, how it was conceived, the applications results, comparative measurement to similar methods as well as its possible future developments.

Biography:

Ahmad Kenaan is 26 years preparing his PhD (last year) in Biophysics and Nanotechnologies at Aix-Marseille university (France). He has published one article during his Master 2 internship and he is preparing at least three articles to publish at the end of his PhD. He has one patent published and one submitted.

Abstract:

The ability to detect ions/molecules of pathological or physiological interest in the body associated with high sensitivity and specificity offers large opportunities for the early diagnostic and treatment of diseases. For example, the case of the Wilson disease, which is induced by the accumulation of copper in tissues, is one of these typical examples. When the disease is diagnosed early enough it can be efficiently treated while it leads to death when the diagnostic is realized at too advanced stages in the disease. Therefore it is crucial to develop a test with unique features such as ease of use, fast and low cost allowing systematic early diagnostic. Our project stands in this framework. Our device is based on field effect transistor (FET) technology and is constituted of an organic lipid monolayer with a thickness of 2.7 nm used as gate dielectric instead of classically used inorganic oxide. Using an ultra-thin dielectric increases the sensitivity of the sensor while allowing using low operating voltage. The specificity of the detection relies on specific chelators that are grafted to the lipids head-groups. Together the lipid monolayer and the chelator constitute the active layer of the device and play a major role in the device performances. We will show how the quality of the monolayer in terms of density and mechanical stability directly impacts its insulating properties and performances. Sensing examples regarding iron III and copper II detection are demonstrated with sensitivities down to the femtomolar range. These are among the best results reported for small ions detection.

Biography:

Jun Chen is pursuing her PhD in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, USA. She earned her Bachelor degree in 2011 from Central South University, China. Her research concentrates on biocompatible and injectable biosensors.

Abstract:

Diabetes mellitus is one of the leading incurable diseases which may lead to severe health complications. The key for diabetes management is regular monitoring and maintenance of blood glucose levels in the body. We present herein an optical glucose biosensor for glucose monitoring, where a fluorescent enzymatic hydrogel consisting of fluorescein, polyethylene glycol and glucose oxidase (GOx) is employed. In the presence of GOx, chemical polymerization of poly ethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and fluorescein o-acrylate (FOA) results in the formation of fluorescent hydrogel with GOx entrapped into the hydrogel matrix. GOx catalyzes oxidation of glucose to gluconic acid that interacts with pH-sensitive fluorescein motif in hydrogel and thus significantly quenches its fluorescence, which was optically measured and correlated with glucose concentration. Furthermore, a fluorescent hydrogel microfiber was also developed as a potentially optical injectable glucose biosensor with improved response time. Both glucose-responsive hydrogel sensor and glucose-responsive hydrogel microfiber show good sensitivity and reproducibility for glucose detection.

Biography:

Abstract:

Most fluorescent biological probes and bio-imaging reagents developed thus far are organic dyes. It is commonly believed that transition metal complexes are highly toxic and thus not suitable for biological applications, especially where living systems are concerned. It has been shown that luminescent transition metal complexes are attractive candidates to probe biomolecules and image live cells and animals, because they show longer-lived emission, higher photo stability and minimal self-quenching. However, the task of generating excited states with long lifetimes has been met with limited success, owing to the ultrafast deactivation of the highly active excited states5. In this talk, we present a design rule that can be used to tune the emission lifetime of a wide range of luminescent organic molecules, based on effective stabilization of triplet excited states through strong coupling in H-aggregated molecules. Based on first-principle design, our data revealed that luminescence lifetimes up to 1.35 s, which are several orders of magnitude longer than those of conventional organic fluorophores, can be realized under ambient conditions. These results outline a fundamental principle to design organic fluorescent molecules with extended lifetimes of excited states, providing a major step forward in expanding the scope of organic phosphorescence applications.

Biography:

Will get updated shortly....!

Abstract:

Technical University of Catalonia, Mechanical Engineering Department, Terrassa, Spain Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) integrated microfluidics has been a powerful tool for new developments in analytical chemistry. These microfluidic systems enable the miniaturization, integration and automation of complex biochemical assays through the reduction of reagent use and enabling portability, There are many applications in clinical, veterinary, agricultural, food industry and environmental which analyzing the chemical composition of the samples could be useful, but the inaccessibility to the chemical laboratories is postponing these tests. For instance, in clinics, Point of care (POC) products presented smartness, speed, cost-effectiveness, and portability. These characteristics have motivated many researchers to develop novel instruments based on this technology. Current work proposes a novel combination of electrosmotic and capillary forces to design high throughput blood plasma separation microfluidic chip. Miniaturization of the a human blood test device and separation of red blood cells by low DC voltage in a short time as a point of care device was objective of current work. In principle, the blood plasma separation is based on the filtration and electro-osmotic mechanisms. First, the microchannel is filled by capillary flow and blood plasma is drawn in a micro-filter micro-array (MFMA) while red blood cells accumulate in the entrance of MFMA. The red blood cell clogging is an inevitable and major issue in filtration, which can be modulated by increasing the shear rate on the trapped cells that can sweep them away from the entrance of the filtration channel. For this reason, two different mechanisms were introduced in the design and performance of such a microdevice. In the microdevice design, a constriction has been allocated in the middle of the transport channel for increasing the shear rate on the trapped RBCs, resulting reduction of the RBCs accumulation in the entrance of the separation area. This mechanism delays the RBCs clogging of the separation area entrance at the microdevice performance. As the second mechanism, the reciprocating electro-osmotic flow (EOF) was utilized to control the blood cell movement in the microdevice. Under an applied electric field, the motion of blood cells in a microchannel can be controlled by determining the net force of cells due to both EOF of plasma and electrophoresis of cells. In this strategy, after stabilization of the blood plasma process and RBCs accumulation at the entrance of the separation area; the RBCs accumulation has been broken via reverse the DC electro-osmotic flow direction due switch back of electric field. Due to this method the microdevice was fabricated, which consisted of the PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) main microchannel (Top part) and the glass etched (down part). The lithography and wet chemical etching methods have been used in order to produce glass etched, micro filter micro array (2-μm height). Both parts were bonded via an oxygen plasma treatment. Two Platinum electrodes (Roland Consult-Germany) allocated in the inlet and outlets of the main channel were used for creating the electric field. In order to analysis the electrosmotic flow, the ANSYS Multiphysics (ANSYS Academic Research, 14.5 User’s Guide, ANSYS, Inc. 2014) was applied to generate a numerical model of electric field distribution inside microchannel. To demonstrate the potential as a clinical tool two different types of test are implemented. First a single test for the qualitative detection of the TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone). The TSH test measures the levels of TSH, a hormone that is produced and released by your pituitary gland. The official "normal" range for the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) blood test runs from approximately 0.5 to 4.5/5.0 μIU/ml. In this range, a TSH under 0.5 μIU/ml indicated hyperthyroidism (an overactive thyroid), and a TSH over 5.0 μIU/ml indicated hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid) but since the use of the reversible electroosmotic flow allows an increased extraction of plasma, a blood panel for measuring two indicators in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction (MI): Cardiac Troponin (cTnI) and Creatine Kinase MB (CK-MB) have also been implemented by hybridizing the proposed microfluidic circuit with lateral flow immune chromatography technologies. cTnI is a protein found in the cardiac muscle that is released into the blood. 4-6 hours after the onset of pain. CK-MB is an enzyme found in the cardiac muscle too, but that is released 3-8 hours after the onset of symptoms, but it lasts up to 72 hours while cTnI can become elevated up to 10 days. A Combination of both measurements in the same test increases the efficiency of the diagnosis. Using this microfluidic device, substantial separated blood plasma was observed for voltages lower than 50 V. Consequently 1μL human blood plasma 99% purity where, filled with collecting channel and plasma reservoirs from 10 μL human blood. The capability of the presented microdevice for separating and gathering blood plasma pave the way for portable blood analysis in biomedical application as a point of care device or cell separation in different samples.