MRI: Acquisition of Equipment to Construct Microfluidic Instruments for use In Chemistry, Biology, and Materials Science

该奖项来自主要研究仪器，支持布兰代斯大学购买半导体制造设备，以支持微流控设备的开发。这些设备通常由一平方英寸的塑料制成，其中包含旨在精确计量、混合和存储微量液体的微型管道。化学、生物和材料科学研究的一个瓶颈往往是目标样品的可获得性有限，无论它是新药、蛋白质还是合成材料。微流控装置是一种将目前实验室中处理的液体体积减少一千倍的方法。由于这些设备是使用半导体技术制造的，通过将晶体管从大型真空管转换为微型半导体实现的规模经济，现在正在通过使用微流体使管道微型化来实现流体处理技术。微流控技术与半导体技术的结合正在催生商业化的“芯片实验室”仪器，并改变化学和生物领域的实验室实践。作为这项技术应用的一个例子，该设备的主要用户之一将制造用于蛋白质结晶的微流控设备。需要蛋白质晶体来推断蛋白质的结构，这对于理解蛋白质的功能以及为治疗目的而设计的药物是重要的。蛋白质结晶过程需要试验许多不同的溶剂条件，而使用微流控技术将使产量提高1000倍。这项来自主要研究仪器的奖项支持布兰代斯大学购买半导体制造设备，以支持微流控设备的开发。这些微流体仪器由一种弹性聚合物组成，通过它可以在高度和宽度上运行数十到数百微米的通道。设计、制造不同的微流控部件，并将其组合到单个仪器(芯片实验室)中，以精确计量、混合和存储亚纳升数量的样品、溶剂和其他试剂。上述设备套件将提供为每种应用定制的设计、制造和操作微流控仪器的能力。例如，该设备的主要用户之一将制造用于蛋白质结晶的微流控设备，在这种设备中，需要快速处理多种不同的溶剂条件，同时尽可能少地消耗蛋白质，这为开发微流控设备提供了动力。另一位用户将利用微流控设备研究胶体液晶中相变的动力学，其中在高分辨率光学显微镜中快速混合试剂的要求推动了对微流控设备的需求，而第三名研究人员将研究经历化学反应的液滴之间的耦合，其中使用微流控设备可以精确控制液滴的大小和空间形状。

This award from the Major Research Instrumentation supports Brandeis University with the acquisition of a semi-conductor manufacturing equipment to enable the development of microfluidic devices. These are devices, typically constructed of a square inch of plastic, that contain microscopic plumbing designed to precisely meter, mix, and store minute amounts of fluids. A bottleneck in research in chemistry, biology, and materials science is often the limited availability of the sample of interest, whether it be a new drug, protein, or synthetic material. Microfluidic devices are a way of reducing a thousand fold the volumes of liquids handled in current laboratories. Because these devices are manufactured using semiconductor technology the economies of scale realized by converting transistors from large vacuum tubes to microscopic semiconductors are now being achieved in fluid handling technologies through the use of microfluidics to miniaturize plumbing. The integration of microfluidics with semiconductor technology is leading to the creation of commercial "lab-on-a-chip" instruments and the transformation of laboratory practices in chemistry and biology. As an example of an application of this technology, one of the principal users of this equipment will manufacture microfluidic devices for protein crystallization. Protein crystals are needed in order to deduce the protein's structure, which is important in understanding the function of proteins, as well as the drugs designed for therapeutic purposes. The process of protein crystallization requires the trial of many different solvent conditions and the use of microfluidics will permit a thousand fold increase in throughput.This award from the Major Research Instrumentation supports Brandeis University with the acquisition of a semi-conductor manufacturing equipment to enable the development of microfluidic devices . These microfluidic instruments consist of an elastomeric polymer through which run channels of tens to hundreds of microns in height and width. Different microfluidic components are designed, fabricated, and combined into a single instrument (lab-on-a-chip) to precisely meter, mix, and store sub-nanoliter amounts of sample, solvent, and other reagents. The suite of equipment described above will provide the capability to design, manufacture, and operate microfluidic instruments that are customized for each application. For example, one of the principal users of this equipment will manufacture microfluidic devices for protein crystallization, where the need to process many different solvent conditions rapidly while consuming as little as possible of the protein provides the motivation to develop microfluidic devices. Another user will utilize microfluidic devices to study the kinetics of phase transitions in colloidal liquid crystals, where the requirement to rapidly mix reagents in a high resolution optical microscope drives the need for microfluidic devices, while a third investigator will study coupling between drops undergoing chemical reactions, where employment of microfluidic devices allows precise control of both the drop size and spatial configuration of the drops.