Nikolay Dimov
University College London, UK
Title: Microflow actuation impact on miniaturization of laboratory unit operations: Two study cases from downstream processing and point-of-care diagnostics
Biography
Biography: Nikolay Dimov
Abstract
Extraction and filtration comprise major part of existing key operations in many recovery processes for biological materials throughout red biotech and sample preparation in point-of-need diagnostic devices. Advances in miniaturization allow for process intensification and on demand dissipation of unique technical solutions, which will revolutionize pharma and healthcare, as we know them. This seminar will focus on the means of control and actuation of fluid flows in microfluidics for purification of drug encapsulating liposomes and sample preparation from complex fluid. The first part of the presentation will touch upon continuous liposome synthesis and purification on bench-top scale. A train of microfluidic devices is presented that facilitates tailored synthesis of liposome vesicles for drug delivery applications. In the second part of the seminar a mechanism for intrinsic flow control on a rotating disc will be shown. Novel valve technology enables built-in actuation and release of reagents in consecutive, programmable manner with predefined controllable timing. This technology is used for the extraction of RNA from samples of whole blood that are spiked with E.coli or MCF-7 cells, breast cancer cell line, to mimic patient samples. At final, diagnostics strategy is discussed using those purified samples. These examples demonstrate advances of flow actuation and miniaturization of laboratory unit operations for recovery of biological samples.