The dufflebag project: development of a microfluidic point-of-care system for infectious disease diagnosis

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Infectious diseases ranging from avian influenza to Ebola virus infection are among the most serious health emergencies in Canada and globally. Current diagnosis methods such as cell culture, ELISA and PCR suffer from inaccuracy, high-cost and lengthy procedures. Therefore, there has been a growing trend to develop new point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tools, and microfluidic devices are considered an important enabling technology owing to its advantages in miniaturization, precise fluidic control, low-cost and high-throughput. Exploration of new microfluidic diagnostic assays require understanding of the unique physical and chemical principles of fluidic behaviors at the micrometer scale, advanced microfabrication techniques and engineering designs, and effective system integration with biological, optical sensing and data analysis components. In this direction, the proposed project will develop a novel antibody-based infectious disease POC diagnosis assay in a microfluidic device. Through close collaboration with the industrial sponsor and several academic research groups in nanofabrication, photonics and immunology, we will develop and optimize functional prototypes of the microfluidic device, and integrate it with the antibody-array based photonic diagnostic assay. At the end of this project, the developed prototype will be ready for clinical testing and proceeding with commercialization pathway in the next stage. This project will enable rich research and development training at the interfaces of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology and mechine, as well as unique industrial experience for several highly qualified personnel including postdoc and graduate students.