MedicalDiagnostics
Our bioparticle trap, micropumps and micromixers are being integrated into medical diagnostics that will one day be commercially available for home use. Diabetic home-test kits have shown that there is a huge market for medical diagnostics that are intended for consumer use. Microfluidics has dramatically improved the quality of life of diabetics by increasing automation and decreasing sample size to make for a convenient and painless routine test. The innovations from the Center for Microfluidics and Medical Diagnostics will lead to consumer test kits for a broad range of conditions that range from determining the rate of blood coagulation to evaluating the healthiness of red blood cells.
Graduate student Zach Gagnon couples dielectrophoresis with intense convection currents to rapidly concentrate and resuspend target species.
The medical diagnostics of the future, such as the one as shown in this picture, transform weeks of expensive laboratory testing into seconds of automated analysis.
- Rapid Analysis. Dielectrophoresis, when used in combination with a fast convective flow, leads to the development of highly concentrated lines.
- Fast Manipulation. The highly concentrated lines can quickly be moved from one location to another on the medical diagnostic.
- Reusable. Once the signal has been analyzed, the particles are rapidly resuspended into solution.