Bio-MicroElectroMechanical Systems Resource Center

描述(由申请人提供)： 微制造技术或微型机电系统(MEMS)已经给电子行业带来了革命性的变化，现在正准备好给制药和生物技术行业以及基础生物医学科学带来革命性的变化。微制造在生物学中的两个领先应用包括同时监测人类和生物体中潜在所有基因表达水平的“芯片上基因”，以及以非常小的体积进行高通量生物化学的“芯片上实验室”型设备。同样令人兴奋的是，最近在理解微环境中细胞行为方面的进展已经开始为活的微型设备铺平道路。新兴的基于活细胞的设备有望成为21世纪医学的关键技术，其应用范围广泛，从诊断、治疗、基于细胞的高通量药物筛选工具，以及基础和应用细胞生物学工具。拟建的NIH生物微机械系统资源中心的使命是为生物医学研究人员提供独特的能力，以便有效地利用微系统技术来探测、干扰、设计和分析生物细胞和组织，以实现基本的生物学发现、诊断、预后和治疗目的。为了将BioMEMS的工具提供给生物医学界，我们集中精力进行了三个核心技术研发项目，核心项目1主要是一个技术开发提案，总体目标是开发微流控系统，在不改变血细胞表型的情况下操纵和分选血细胞。核心项目2发展了微制造工具，以创建用于生理过程动态研究的工程化复杂组织单元。核心项目3探讨免疫反应中白细胞双向运动的分子和细胞机制。围绕这三个核心项目的技术研究和开发计划不仅涉及健全的技术开发，而且还解决了白细胞生物学、趋化和免疫反应以及组织工程方面的重要生物学问题。此外，还有9个合作项目既利用了核心技术，又帮助推动了核心技术的发展。拟建的NIH生物MEMS资源中心将为NIH的研究人员提供服务，让他们在生物学和医学中使用微系统技术的工具。传播活动非常广泛，包括(1)研讨会、座谈会和会议，(2)讲习班和课程，以及(3)各种出版物。培训活动包括博士后和博士后(医学博士和博士后)研究员，以及为生物医学科学家提供动手微系统技术培训的专门培训课程。拟建的NIH BioMEMS资源中心已经与其他三个P41生物技术资源中心、一个NSF教育研究中心(ERC)、一个NIH生物工程研究伙伴关系(BRP)赠款和两个NIH“胶水赠款”建立了重要的战略联盟。因此，拟议的资源中心非常适合向生物医学界传播微制造工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Microfabrication techniques or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that have revolutionized the electronics industry are now poised to revolutionize the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and basic biomedical sciences. The two leading applications of microfabrication in biology include "genes-on-a-chip" to monitor the expression level of potentially all genes in humans and organisms simultaneously, and "lab-on-a-chip" type devices to perform high-throughput biochemistry in very small volumes. Equally exciting is the fact that recent advances in the understanding of cellular behavior in microenvironments have started to pave the way towards living micro-devices. The emerging living cell-based devices are expected to become key technologies in the 21st century of medicine with a broad range of applications varying from diagnostic, therapeutics, cell-based high-throughput drug screening tools, and basic and applied cell biology tools. The mission for the proposed NIH BioMEMS Resource Center is to provide unique capabilities to biomedical investigators in order to efficiently use microsystems technologies to probe, perturb, engineer, and analyze biological cells and tissues for basic biological discovery, diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic purposes. In order to make the tools of BioMEMS available to the biomedical community, we focused our efforts on 3 core technological research and development projects, Core Project 1 is primarily a technology development proposal with the overall aim of developing microfluidic systems to manipulate and sort blood cells without altering their phenotypes. Core Project 2 advances microfabrication tools to create engineered complex tissue units for dynamic studies of physiological processes. Core Project 3 probes into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of leukocyte bidirectional motility in immune response. The technological research and development program centered around these 3 Core Projects not only involves sound technology development but also addresses important biological problems in leukocyte biology, chemotaxis and immune response, and tissue engineering. In addition, there are 9 collaborative projects that both utilize and help advance the core technologies. The proposed NIH BioMEMS Resource Center will provide services to NIH investigators to use the tools of microsystems technology in biology and medicine. The dissemination activities are very broad encompassing (1) seminars, symposia, and meetings, (2)workshops and courses, and (3) various types of publications. The training activities include both pre-doctoral and post-doctoral (both MD and PhD) fellows, and specialized training sessions to provide hands-on microsystems technology training to biomedical scientists. The proposed NIH BioMEMS Resource Center has already established significant strategic alliances with three other P41 Biotechnology Resource Centers, an NSF Educational Research Center (ERC), an NIH Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) grant, and two NIH "Glue Grants". Thus, the proposed Resource Center is exceedingly well poised to disseminate the tools of microfabrication to the biomedical community.