SBIR Phase I: Affordable Microfluidics-based Educational Kits and Custom Instruments for Students and Biologists

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一套负担得起的模块化设备和软件，使定制生物仪器的设计、组装和自动化变得容易。其目标是为生物学家提供一种有效的方法，利用微流控工具和自动化来加速科学进步和新技术的商业化。微流控技术有望在诊断学和生命科学领域带来革命性的改进，但它们的市场渗透受到高成本、现有仪器缺乏和培训课程低效的阻碍。该套件的组件将被设计成廉价和可重复使用的，因此当生物学家的需求发生变化时，它们可以被重新使用。该软件将提供循序渐进的组装说明并自动配置设备，因此制作一台仪器就像组装一套乐高积木一样。这项技术可能被用来培训高中生和大学生使用真实世界的实验室技术。这个SBIR第一阶段项目建议开发模块化设备和软件，使生物学家能够生产定制的生物仪器来加速他们的研究。第一阶段的工作将集中在新的微流控工具上，并将包括原型和测试。这一开发从三个方面进行：1)实现软件，以允许同时和嵌套的自动化脚本执行。这允许将仪器虚拟化为块，并对用户隐藏操作复杂性。2)扩展设备功能，包括热控制，例如用于快速聚合酶链式反应、孵化、灭菌等，并执行准确、无脉冲、高时间响应的液体分配，用于液滴生成、高效液相、样品制备等。3)为高中和大学的生物和工程专业学生设计和改进用户界面和课程材料，以找到有效的图形界面用于仪器设计和组装。在第二阶段，计划将这些界面整合到软件中，以便顶层设计直观，仪器组装遵循清晰的循序渐进的可视化说明。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project is to develop an affordable suite of modular devices and software that makes it easy to design, assemble, and automate a custom bioinstrument. The goal is to provide biologists with an effective method to employ microfluidic tools and automation to accelerate scientific progress and commercialize new technologies. Microfluidic technologies promise revolutionary improvements in diagnostics and life sciences, but their market penetration is hampered by high costs, a lack of available instruments, and ineffective training curricula. The components of this suite will be designed to be inexpensive and re-usable, so when the biologists' needs change, they can be repurposed. The software will be designed to provide step-by-step assembly instructions and automatically configure devices, so making an instrument will be like putting together a Lego set. The technology may be used to train high school and college students in real-world laboratory techniques.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop modular devices and software that will enable biologists to produce custom bioinstrumentation to accelerate their research. The Phase I effort will focus on new microfluidics tools and will include prototyping and testing. This development proceeds on three fronts: 1) Implementing the software to allow simultaneous and nested automation-script execution. This allows virtualizing instruments into blocks and hiding operational complexities from users. 2) Expanding device functionality to include thermal control, e.g., for rapid PCR, incubation, sterilization, etc., and to perform accurate, pulse-free, high-temporal-response fluid dispensing for droplet generation, HPLC, sample preparation, etc. 3) Prototyping and refining user-interface and curriculum materials on biology and engineering students in high school and college to find effective graphical interfaces for instrument design and assembly. In Phase II, the plan is to incorporate these interfaces into the software, so top-level design is intuitive, and instrument assembly follows clear step-by-step visual instructions.