A Low-Cost Ultrasonic-Based Blood Cell Lysing System

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Currently, the most common approach for destroying diseased tissues with ultrasound is via a high intensity, high powered ultrasonic field. This heats the tissue in the area near the focus of the ultrasonic field, leading to complete tissue breakdown. Recently, there has been a lot of excitement surrounding an alternative ultrasound approach known as "histotripsy." Histotripsy requires only a fraction of the power of conventional approaches, since it uses a high pressure, short duration ultrasound pulse. This pulse produces tiny bubbles that expand and collapse to create mechanical damage of tissue. This mechanical "tearing" results in virtually no heating or damage to surrounding healthy tissue. If funded, we will work with Alere Inc., whose flagship product is the epoc point of care blood analysis system. The epoc microfluidic cartridge is the size of a credit card and takes a small volume of blood from a syringe or capillary tube, where it analyzes the sample within 40 seconds, permitting rapid clinical decisions. A non-thermal means of breaking down blood cells is essential in order to preserve information required in blood assays. While the current blood assay process is effective and does not heat the blood, it requires harsh chemical detergents that complicate downstream assays and card manufacturing. Over the six-month course of the Engage grant, we plan to design and fabricate a custom low-cost highly focused high efficiency ultrasound transducer, and develop a compact electrical driving system for generating histotripsy in confined samples of blood. With the support of Alere Inc., we will test how well our histotripsy system works for blood cell breakdown in comparison to the detergents that Alere currently used in its products. The development of the technology will have broad social benefits by improving the state of the art in point-of-care diagnostics.