PECASE: Dielectric Phenotyping of Bacteria for Energy and Medicine

本研究的目的是阐明细胞包膜表型与介电特性之间的耦合关系。这将通过对病原菌和电化学活性细菌的调查来实现。将使用基于三维绝缘体的介电(3DiDEP)设备。新的3DiDEP平台能够基于细胞包膜表型对活细胞进行非侵入性的分类、捕获和鉴定。这项工作的假设是3DiDEP可以用来表征细菌细胞膜上表达的功能。3DiDEP可实现低电压、高灵敏度的电池分离和分析。此外，所提出的3DiDEP采用微通道外的电极，该技术在低频或直流电场下工作。所提出的3DiDEP是一种强大的微生物学高通量表型分析技术。利用3DiDEP进行表型选择代表了微流控技术在不断发展的表型组学领域的首批应用之一。拟议中的项目还可能有助于解决从可再生能源到医疗保健等不同领域的广泛担忧。PI还建议发展与目标大学的关系，以增加麻省理工学院研究生课程中代表性不足的少数族裔的代表性。国际和平研究所概述了一种独特的方法，以培养新一代代表性不足的少数族裔科学家，他们可能会回到各自的本科院校担任教师，从而在学生和教师层面上解决多样性问题。

Abstract1150615-Buie, Cullen R.The objective of the proposed research is to illuminate the coupling between cell envelope phenotype and dielectric properties. This will be achieved by the investigation of pathogenic bacteria and electrochemically active bacteria. A three-dimensional insulator based dielectrophoresis (3DiDEP) device will be used. The novel 3DiDEP platform enables non-invasive sorting, trapping, and characterization of living cells based upon the cell envelope phenotype. The hypothesis of the work is that 3DiDEP can be used to characterize the functions expressed on the bacteria cell envelope. 3DiDEP enables low voltage, high sensitivity separation and analysis of cells. Also, the proposed 3DiDEP employs electrodes outside of the microchannel, the technique operates at low frequency or DC electric fields. The proposed 3DiDEP is a powerful technique for high throughput phenotyping in microbiology. Phenotype based selection using 3DiDEP represents one of the first applications of microfluidics in the growing field of phenomics. The proposed project may also help to address widespread concerns in diverse fields ranging from renewable energy to healthcare. The PI also proposes to develop relationships with target universitis to increase the representation of underrepresented minorities in MIT graduate programs. The PI has outlined a unique approach to train a new generation of underrepresented minority scientists who may return to their respective undergraduate institutions as faculty, thereby attacking the diversity issue on both the student and faculty levels.