HIGH-SPEED MICROFLUIDIC SORTING OF BIOHAZARDOUS CELLS.

描述（由申请人提供）： 有效的国家防御生物恐怖主义需要安全，快速识别恐怖分子使用的病原体。我们将建立一个廉价的，桌面，细胞分选仪（流式细胞仪）的快速，安全的处理生物危险细胞和材料的生物安全4级环境。（BSL-4）。与其他“Iab芯片”设计不同，我们的承诺超高吞吐量，由于我们独特的，（专利申请中）大规模串并联设计。我们估计，我们可以将单个稀有细胞从背景群体中分离出来，速度比目前的设计快1000倍。 我们的微型和大规模串并联设计的关键是，我们已经消除了复杂的，笨重的激光器和光电倍增管检测器设备的今天的细胞分选机。相反，我们将使用廉价的半导体光源，如LED，二极管激光器或VCELS，以及半导体光电探测器，如光电二极管，二极管阵列和CCD。实际上，通过将滤光涂层应用于小像素簇，单个CCD可以分析整个发射光谱。 在第一阶段，我们将评估和选择竞争的微光子和微流体（阀门）的方法。我们还将建立一个实验室模型的原型分拣机，并演示3个阶段的串并联II分拣。在“阶段”中，我们将建立一个多级原型，由C. J. Peters博士的团队在UTMB SL-4实验室进行测试，这为我们提供了一个独特的机会，以获得适用于生物防御应用的准确的生物安全测试系统，包括CDC A级病原体。 商业机会：我们的密封、便携式和超高通量分选机将在生物防御以及干细胞治疗、基因组学、蛋白质组学和组合化学应用中的细胞（或珠或颗粒）HTP分选中得到广泛应用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Effective National Defense against bio-terrorism demands safe, rapid identification of the pathogens used by terrorists. We will build an inexpensive, table top, cell sorter (flow cytometer) for rapid, safe processing of bio-hazardous cells and materials in the Bio-safety Level-4 environment. (BSL-4). Unlike other "Iab-on-a-chip" designs, ours promises ultra-high-throughput, due to our unique, (patent pending) massively series-parallel design. We estimate we can separate single rare cells from background populations up to 1,OOO-fold faster than current designs allow. The key to our miniature and massively series-parallel design is that we have eliminated the complex, bulky lasers and photo-multiplier detector equipment of today's cell sorter. Instead, we will use cheap semiconductor light sources, such as LED's, diode lasers, or VCELS, and semiconductor photo-detectors, such as photodiodes, diode arrays, and CCD's. Indeed, with filter coating applied to small pixel clusters, a single CCD can analyze an entire emission spectrum. In Phase I we will evaluate and select among competing micro-photonic and micro-fluidic (valving) approaches. We will also build a bench-model prototype sorter and demonstrate 3 stages of series-parallel II sorting. In Phase ", we will build a multistage prototype for testing by Dr. C.J. Peters' team in the UTMB SL-4 laboratory This provides us a unique opportunity to obtain an accurate bio-safety testing system as applied to bio-defense applications, including CDC A-Level pathogens. Commercial Opportunities: Our sealed, portable, and ultra-high throughput sorter will find broad use in bio-defense and also in HTP sorting of cells (or beads, or particles) for stem cell therapy, genomics, proteomics, and combinatorial chemistry applications.