SENSORS: Portable, Integrated and Highly Sensitive Pathogen Detectors Based on Ferrohydrodynamic Pumping

智力优势：这项工作涉及一个多学科的研究项目，旨在设计、建模、分析、构建和优化一个基于行波激励下磁流体泵送动力学的集成便携式病原体传感器芯片。该研究结合了胶体化学、磁学和流体力学，将基本的建模和分析与简单有效的测试方法相结合。提出的想法是新颖的，并通过PI最近在磁流体方面的理论和实验工作获得了新的见解。这项研究工作有望促进对磁和流体力学领域之间耦合的物理理解，特别是在微观和纳米尺度上。该研究将把物理、数学和数值模拟与微尺度传感器的制造和测试结合起来。这种方法产生了可测试的理论预测，发展了对磁流体流体动力学的基本理解，并能够实现对各种化学和生物病原体的高效传感器。更广泛的影响：这里描述的传感器具有紧凑、便携、集成、廉价、一次性、多用途和高灵敏度的特点，在健康产业、生物医学研究和国土安全方面具有直接影响潜力。通过在一个完全便携和实用的包装中提供快速可靠的检测方案，这种传感器设计可能节省时间、金钱和生命，无论是在医院环境还是在现场。从该传感器工作中获得的理论和实验见解也将促进我们对磁性流体泵送的理解，并为微创和植入式药物输送设备（如糖尿病患者）提供更好的小型化泵设计。此外，芯片上的实验室应用——例如细胞分选和操作，以及DNA和蛋白质的分离和鉴定——将极大地受益于在微观尺度上获得的磁流体泵送经验。这项研究的结果将为本科生和研究生的跨学科培训提供宝贵的机会，并为在耶鲁大学周围的大纽黑文地区开展推广活动提供广阔的前景。PI已经与康涅狄格州工程预科项目（CPEP）合作，计划在纽黑文地区开展推广活动，该地区有大量社会和经济上“处于危险”的儿童，以及传统上代表性不足的少数民族学生的高度集中。

Intellectual Merits: This work involves a multi-disciplinary research program to design, model, analyze, build and optimize an integrated, portable pathogen sensor chip that is based on the pumping dynamics of magnetic fluids under traveling wave excitations. The research incorporates colloidal chemistry, magnetism and fluid mechanics, combining fundamental modeling and analysis with a simple and effective testing methodology. The ideas presented are novel and motivated by the new insights gained through the PI's recent theoretical and experimental work on magnetic fluids. The research effort promises to advance the physical understanding of the coupling between magnetic and fluid mechanics domains, especially at the micro and nano-scales. The study will integrate physical, mathematical and numerical modeling with micro-scale sensor fabrication and testing. This approach results in testable theoretical predictions, develops a fundamental understanding of the hydrodynamics of magnetic fluids, and enables the realization of highly effective sensors for a wide variety of chemical and biological pathogens.Broader Impacts: The sensor described here promises to be compact, portable, integrated, cheap, disposable, versatile and highly sensitive, with direct impact potential in the health industry, biomedical research, and homeland security. By providing a fast and reliable detection scheme in a completely portable and practical package, this sensor design is likely to save time, money and lives, both in hospital settings and in the field. The theoretical and experimental insights gained from this sensor work will also advance our understanding of magnetic fluid pumping, and enable better miniaturized pump designs for minimally invasive and implantable drug delivery devices (such as for diabetic patients). Moreover, lab-on-a-chip applications - such as cell sorting and manipulation, as well as DNA and protein separation and identification - will greatly benefit from the experience gained on magnetic fluid pumping at the micro-scale. The results of this study will provide valuable opportunities for the interdisciplinary training of both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as ample prospects for outreach activities in the greater New Haven area around Yale University. The PI is already collaborating with the Connecticut Pre-Engineering Program (CPEP) for his planned outreach activities around the New Haven area, which has a significant population of socially and economically "at-risk" children, as well as a high concentration of traditionally underrepresented minority students.