ITR: Computational Infrastructure for Microfluidic Systems with Applications to Biotechnology

微流体装置的应用（涉及液体在以微米为单位的空间中移动，即百万分之一米）正在爆炸性地增长。作为一个具体的例子，考虑用于血液测试和筛查的微系统的开发。对于消费者来说，人们可以想象药店里有这样的设备，可以对个人关注的疾病进行基因筛查。在更大的范围内，在血库中使用这种设备可以显着减少筛选每年1400万品脱献血的时间和血液损失。样品制备是集成微型分析系统开发中的关键瓶颈，并且它在很大程度上仍未得到解决。由于没有有效的集成设计方法，目前在微系统外通过混合、振荡和移液来完成。改进的计算方法有望实现微流体的集成和互连。这将产生类似于微电子超大规模集成电路设计的自动化方法的效果;它将彻底改变该领域。本项目将开发一种用于模拟和设计微流体系统的计算基础设施，该系统涉及由表面相关现象主导的非牛顿、微米/纳米尺度流动。将开发计算工具和分析工具，并用于与理论和实验结果进行比较。该项目强调将复杂分子输送到流动表面的方法，以创建表面反应位点，并为分子级混合和分配提供组件。它将设计，制造和表征静止和振荡MEMS流体通道和表面，以评估复杂生物流体的分子级混合，流动，输送和分配。重点将放在表面主导的流动和反应现象上，这些现象可以扩展以将单分子输送到编程的反应位点。这种与表面相关的现象应该在制造基于MEMS的“芯片级”分析仪器和“生物芯片”方面得到广泛的应用。分析和设计这种设备所需的计算工具目前还不存在。该项目汇集了一个由计算机科学家，数值分析师，流体动力学家，实验学家和微尺度过程理论家组成的团队，他们将密切合作创建这些工具并使用它们。

The applications of microfluidic devices (which involve liquids moving in spaces measured in micrometers, i.e. millionths of a meter) are growing explosively. As a specific example, consider the development of microsystems for blood testing and screening. For consumers, one could envision devices available in drugstores that could perform genetic screening for conditions of concern to individuals. At a larger scale, use of such devices in blood banks could significantly reduce the time and blood lost in screening the 14 million pints of blood donated per year. Sample preparation is a critical bottleneck in the development of integrated miniature analytical systems, and it remains largely unaddressed. It is currently done outside the microsystem by mixing, shaking, and pipetting, because there are no effective integrated design method. Improved computational methods promise to allow integration and interconnection of microfluidics. This will have an effect analogous to automated methods for VLSI design on microelectronics; it will revolutionize the field.This project will develop a computational infrastructure for simulation and design of microfluidic systems involving non-Newtonian, micrometer/nanometer-scale flows dominated by surface-related phenomena. Computational tools and analytical tools will be developed and used to compare with theoretical and experimental results. The project emphasizes methods to deliver complex molecules to flow surfaces, to create surface reaction sites and to provide the components for molecular-scale mixing and dispensing. It will design, fabricate, and characterize both stationary and oscillating MEMS fluidic channels and surfaces to evaluate molecular-scale mixing, flow, delivery, and dispensing of complex biological fluids. The focus will be on surface dominated flow and reaction phenomena that can be scaled for delivery of single molecules to programmed reaction sites. Such surface-related phenomena should find broad application in making MEMS-based, "chip-scale" analytical instruments and "biochips". The computational tools required to analyze and design such devices are currently nonexistent. This project brings together a team of computer scientists, numerical analysts, fluid dynamicists, experimentalists, and microscale process theoreticians who will collaborate closely on creating those tools and using them.