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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.

加州大学河滨分校（University of California, Riverside）开发了一种多功能、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。为了最大限度地吸引传统上在STEM领域代表性不足的学生（这些学生占加州大学河滨分校学生总数的近一半）的参与，该项目包括一个项目，将为20名本科生提供机会，协助构建拟议仪器的测试版，供生物科学合作者进行测试。这种宝贵的职业准备培训将有助于培养多样化和具有全球竞争力的STEM劳动力。此外，通过开发一种适合其他研究人员复制和未来商业生产的开源生物仪器设计，该项目将增强国家的研究基础设施，并为未来学术界和工业界之间的伙伴关系奠定基础。测量一个物体的质量在科学中是普遍存在的。但在生物科学中，许多研究对象——如细胞、微生物、鱼胚胎、昆虫幼虫、发芽的种子、水凝胶、口服药物等等——都是在液体环境中存在的。这使得使用实验室天平等传统工具精确测量这些生物样品的质量变得困难或不可能。此外，许多生物样品的质量以有意义的方式变化——生物体随着生长而增加质量，可生物降解材料随着溶解而失去质量，等等——准确监测这些质量随时间的变化是非常费力的。为了解决生物学家捕捉生物现象观察能力的这些差距，该项目将开发和传播一种免费的开源设计，用于自动监测任何微克大小的生物样品的质量、体积和密度，在任何所需的液体中，以纳克级分辨率。该仪器利用一个振动管传感器，一个简单的玻璃管在其共振频率上振动。通过将一毫米大小的生物样品在流体中通过该传感器，样品的质量被记录为传感器共振频率的变化。该仪器的开发过程将以来自加州大学河滨分校五个不同的beta测试生物科学研究实验室的反馈为指导，这些实验室将在毒理学、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和易于使用的仪器设计，任何生物科学研究人员都可以复制并使用它来监测任何合适大小的生物样品，在任何液体中，以完全自动化的方式，在任何所需的时间尺度上。这将给多样化的生物科学研究人员提供一个工具，不仅支持和加速他们现有的研究，而且还开辟了全新的技术和研究领域。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。