Vibrating tube sensors: A versatile and low-cost instrument for continuously monitoring the mass, volume, and density of any microgram-sized biosample in fluid

振动管传感器：一种多功能且低成本的仪器，用于连续监测流体中任何微克大小的生物样品的质量、体积和密度

基本信息

批准号：
2131428
负责人：
William Grover
金额：
$ 33.5万
依托单位：
University of California-Riverside
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2022-02-01 至 2025-01-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2131428&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Vibrating tube sensors versatile low

项目摘要

An award is made to the University of California, Riverside, to develop a versatile and low-cost instrument for continuously monitoring the mass, volume, and density of any microgram-sized biosample in fluid. To maximize involvement of students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields (students who represent nearly half of the student body of UC Riverside), the project includes a program that will give 20 undergraduates the opportunity to assist with building beta versions of the proposed instrument for testing by bioscience collaborators. This valuable career-readiness training will contribute to the development of a diverse and globally competitive STEM workforce. Additionally, by developing an open-source bioinstrument design suitable for replication by other researchers and future commercial production, the project will enhance the nation’s research infrastructure and lay the foundations for future partnerships between academia and industry.Measurements of the mass of an object are ubiquitous throughout the sciences. But in the biosciences, many of the objects studied—like cells, microorganisms, fish embryos, insect larvae, sprouting seeds, hydrogels, oral pharmaceuticals, and many more—reside in a liquid environment. This makes it difficult or impossible to accurately measure the mass of these biosamples using conventional tools like laboratory balances. In addition, the masses of many biosamples change in meaningful ways—an organism gains mass as it grows, a biodegradable material loses mass as it dissolves away, and so on—and accurately monitoring these mass changes over time is very labor-intensive. To address these gaps in biologists’ ability to capture observations of biological phenomena, this project will develop and disseminate a free and open-source design for an instrument capable of automatically monitoring the mass, volume, and density of any microgram-sized biosample, in any desired liquid, with nanogram-scale resolution. The instrument utilizes a vibrating tube sensor, a simple piece of glass tubing vibrated at its resonance frequency. By passing a millimeter-sized biosample in fluid through this sensor, the mass of the sample is recorded as a change in the sensor’s resonance frequency. The instrument development process will be guided by feedback from a diverse set of five beta-testing bioscience research labs at UC Riverside who will use the instrument in toxicology, biomaterials, drug delivery, entomology, and plant science research. The result will be a low-cost and easy-to-use instrument design that any bioscience researcher can replicate and use to monitor any suitably sized biosample, in any liquid, in a fully automated manner, over any desired timescale. This will give a diverse community of bioscience researchers a tool that not only supports and accelerates their existing research but also opens up whole new techniques and areas of inquiry.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

向加利福尼亚大学河滨分校颁发了奖励，以开发一种多功能和低成本的仪器，以连续监测流体中任何微克大小的生物样品的质量，体积和密度。为了最大程度地吸引来自传统在STEM领域（代表UC Riverside学生团体几乎一半的学生）的团体中的学生参与，该项目包括一个计划，该计划将使20个本科生有机会协助建立Bioscience合作者测试的拟议仪器的Beta版本。这种有价值的职业准备培训将有助于发展多样性和全球竞争性STEM劳动力。此外，通过开发适合其他研究人员和未来商业生产复制的开源生物仪器设计，该项目将增强美国的研究基础设施，并为学术界和行业之间的未来合作伙伴关系奠定基础。在整个科学范围内，对象的群众群体是普遍的。但是在生物科学中，许多对象（类似细胞，微生物，鱼类胚胎，昆虫幼虫，发芽种子，水凝胶，口服药物等）在液体环境中均延伸。这使得使用实验室平衡等常规工具可以准确或不可能准确地测量这些生物样品的质量。此外，许多生物样本的质量以有意义的方式变化 - 随着生物的成长，有机体会增加质量，可生物降解的材料在溶解时会失去质量，依此类推 - 随着时间的推移，这些质量变化准确地监测了这些质量变化。为了解决生物学家捕获生物学现象观察的能力中的这些差距，该项目将开发和传播一种自动监测任何纳米尺度分辨率的所需液体中任何微克生物样品的质量，体积和密度的仪器。该仪器利用振动管传感器，简单的玻璃管传感器，一块简单的玻璃管以其共振频率振动。通过通过该传感器将流体中的毫米大小的生物样品传递，样品的质量被记录为传感器共振频率的变化。仪器开发过程将由UC Riverside的五个β测试生物科学研究实验室的潜水员的反馈来指导，他们将在毒理学，生物材料，药物输送，昆虫学和植物科学研究中使用该仪器。结果将是一种低成本且易于使用的仪器设计，任何生物科学研究人员都可以在任何所需的时间表上以完全自动化的方式复制并用来以任何液体（以任何液体）的方式监视任何适当尺寸的生物样品。这将为一个生物科学研究人员的潜水员社区提供一种工具，不仅可以支持和加速其现有研究，而且还开辟了全新的技术和询问领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准通过评估来获得的支持。