UNS:Coupling Thermophoresis with Engineered Convection for Label free, Continuous Bionanoparticle Concentration in Microfluidic Devices

生物纳米颗粒，如病毒和囊泡，通常集中在临床诊断、防御监测和食品安全监测中。传统的方法，如高速离心和纳滤，是仪器和劳动密集型的，在资源有限的条件下是不切实际的。这些挑战促使研究人员为纳米颗粒处理创造一种新的微流体解决方案。该研究的成功将对临床感染诊断、国土安全监测和食品安全监测的病毒样本处理产生广泛的实际影响。这项跨学科的研究将为本科生和研究生的培养提供极好的机会。这项研究将有助于课程发展，并直接影响本科和研究生课程。研究人员将继续积极参与K-12外展计划，以激励和吸引有才华的学生进入STEM领域。研究人员还将继续努力，增加来自代表性不足群体的学生参与这项研究项目。提出的策略结合热泳和工程对流克服布朗运动和实现定向纳米颗粒迁移。提出的策略是通过对纳米颗粒在温度梯度下迁移的基本研究和对流流动的合理设计来增强这种分离。该方法使用具有控制运动学和热剖面的简单微尺度流，适用于生物溶液中悬浮的纳米级成分，如病毒、脂质体和外泌体。分离过程具有生物相容性，无标记性，浓缩物可连续回收。除了与设计更快、更好、更便宜的诊断方法相关的变革性社会影响外，该研究还在对生物物种的非平衡运输和微结构基质在无惯性流动中的流场控制产生基本理解方面具有创新性。

1511284ChengLehigh UniversityBionanoparticles, such as viruses and vesicles, are commonly concentrated in clinical diagnosis, defense surveillance and food safety monitoring. Conventional methods, such as high-speed centrifugation and nanofiltration, are instrument and labor intensive and unpractical under resource-limited conditions. These challenges motivate the researchers to create a novel microfluidic solution for nanoparticle processing. Success of the proposed research will have broad practical impact in viral sample processing for clinical diagnostics of infection, homeland security surveillance and food safety monitoring. This interdisciplinary research will provide excellent opportunities for undergraduate and graduate student training. This research will contribute to course development and directly impact the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. The investigators will continue to actively participate in K-12 outreach programs to motivate and attract talented students to STEM fields. The investigators will also continue the effort to increase the participation of students from underrepresented groups in this research program.The proposed strategy combines thermophoresis with engineered convection to overcome Brownian motion and achieve directed nanoparticle migration. The proposed strategy is enabled by a fundamental investigation of nanoparticle migration in a temperature gradient and rational design of convective flow to augment such separations. Using a simple microscale flow having controlled kinematics and thermal profiles, the approach is universal for suspended nanoscale constituents such as viruses, liposomes and exosomes in biological solutions. The separation process is biocompatible, label-free, and the concentrated species are retrieved continuously. In addition to the transformative societal impact associated with designing faster, better, cheaper diagnostics, the research is also innovative in generating fundamental understanding of both non-equilibrium transport of biological species and flow field control in inertial-free flows by microstructured substrates.