MRI: Development of a microfluidic flow cytometer for high-throughput noninvasive single-cell physio-chemical analysis

得克萨斯农工大学被授予开发一种新的独特仪器的奖项，该仪器将受到得克萨斯农工大学内外用户的追捧，为分子和细胞生物学、农业、工程、医学和国防领域的尖端研究和教育提供无与伦比的能力。这种新的仪器在许多方面都是独一无二的，预计它将在开发高通量细胞分析的新方法方面发挥重要作用，这在生物学和医学中是非常重要的。这一工具的新兴应用领域之一是脂质组学。能够将生物质转化为石油的微生物(包括天然微生物和工程微生物)为实现可持续的石油生产和加强国内能源独立提供了希望。新开发的工具将通过联合几个学院、研究所和中心，大大加强大学的基础设施。该项目将支持更广泛的影响，促进本科生和研究生以及普通公众的教育和培训。具体地说，该项目将为几所大学和研究学科的高积极性本科生提供研究机会和培训；为来自德克萨斯州格兰德河谷和美国-墨西哥边境地区的学生提供独特的教育机会，根据美国人口普查局的数据，该地区包括美国经济最贫困的地区。结果将通过出版物、公开演示、教程和实践培训研讨会广泛传播。最后，这项研究的结果将通过《看不见的丛林》的广播片段向公众传播，这是一个本科生制作的广播节目，每周在当地的国家公共广播电台附属机构KAMU Radio(德克萨斯州大学站)播出。鉴定、分类和分类活细胞是相当有研究意义和商业价值的活动。细胞的化学成分和弹性对我们的分类和对功能的理解起着重要的作用。细胞化学成分的常规分析包括使用分子标记或破坏细胞活力的分析方法。同样，生物材料的生物力学或弹性特性的传统分析涉及劳动密集型和缓慢的方法。目前还没有商业仪器能够以高吞吐量(每秒1000个细胞)且非侵入性地评估这些特性。这种仪器的潜在需求是巨大的，因为几乎每个研究/工业/临床实验室都依赖于细胞分选。通过提供更多功能，新开发的仪器还将填补仪器设备方面的现有空白。科学仪器领域的创新往往有几个关键特征。首先，这些创新进行了以前不可能进行的测量。其次，他们以前所未有的吞吐量以低成本执行分析。最后，仪器创新解决了一项重要的科学需求。在这里，我们将开发一个革命性的技术平台，它包含了科学仪器创新的所有特征，因此，有可能显著推动生命科学、生物医学和工程研究。整个仪器将由两个部分组成：(1)经过优化的光学传感单元，用于(A)通过相干反斯托克斯拉曼散射对细胞进行化学分析，以及(B)通过相干布里渊散射对细胞内的弹性进行生物物理测量；以及(2)多功能微流体器件，为细胞输送、分选和原位验证细胞的弹性性质提供标准化平台。新开发的仪器还将使用生物样本进行验证。

An award is made to Texas A&M University to develop a new and unique instrument which will be sought by users within and outside Texas A&M University and provide unsurpassed capabilities for the cutting-edge research and education in the areas of molecular and cellular biology, agriculture, engineering, medicine, and national defense. The new instrumentation is unique in many aspects, and it is anticipated that it will play a major role in developing new approaches for high-throughput cellular analysis, which are in high demand in biology and medicine. One of the thrust areas of emerging applications for this instrument is lipidomics. Microbes (both natural and engineered) that can convert biomass into oil offer the promise of achieving sustainable oil production and enhancing domestic energy independence. The newly developed instrument will substantially enhance the University infrastructure by uniting several Colleges, Institutes and Centers. This project will support broader impacts that promote the education and training of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the general public. Specifically, this project will provide research opportunities and training for highly motivated undergraduates across several colleges and research disciplines; provide unique educational opportunities for students from the Texas Rio Grande Valley and the United States-Mexico border region, which includes the most economically disadvantaged areas of the country according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The results will be broadly disseminated through publications, public presentations, tutorial, and hands-on training seminars. Finally, findings from this research will be disseminated to the public through broadcasted segments on "Invisible Jungle", an undergraduate-produced radio program that is carried weekly on the local National Public Radio Affiliate, KAMU radio (College Station, Texas).Identification, classification and sorting live cells are activities of considerable research and commercial interest. Chemical composition and elasticity in cells play an important role our classification and our understanding of function. Conventional analysis of the chemical composition of cells involves the use of molecular labels or analytical approaches that destroy cell viability. Similarly, the conventional analysis of biomechanical or elastic properties of biological materials involves labor intensive and slow approaches. No commercial instrument exists to assess those properties at a high throughput rate (1000 cells per second) and non-invasively. The potential demand for such instrumentation is enormous, since almost every research/industrial/clinical lab relies on cell sorting. By providing additional capabilities, the newly developed instrument will also fill existing gaps in instrumentation. Innovations in scientific instrumentation often share several key features. First, these innovations perform measurements that were previously impossible. Second, they perform analyses at low cost with unprecedented throughput. Finally, instrumentation innovations address an important scientific need. Here, we will develop a transformative technology platform that contains all of the hallmarks of innovation in scientific instrumentation, and as such, has the potential to significantly advance life science, biomedical and engineering research. The overall instrument will be composed of two parts: (1) an optical sensing unit optimized for (a) chemical analysis of cells by means of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectroscopy, and (b) biophysical measurements of elasticity in cells through coherent Brillouin scattering; and (2) multifunctional microfluidic devices providing standardized platforms for cell delivery, sorting, and in situ validation of cell?s elastic properties. The newly developed instruments will also be validated using biological samples.