Biological microfluidics

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Molecular motors-driven motility of microorganisms in many biological and artificial micro-environments is an important and ubiquitous process for many applications. Microfluidics can be employed for mimicking microscopic habitats, thus allowing the intimate observation of microorganism motility, which is otherwise difficult or impossible in natural environments. The Long-Term Objective of the program is to build an atlas of biological motility at the microscale. The program will progress on three research directions. First, the program will study the biological motility in mimetic micro-environments for classes of microorganisms, with individual, e.g., bacteria, or with collective movement, e.g., fungi, as well as the impact of various taxis mechanisms. Second, the program will build predictive models of microorganism motility in microfluidics, to be used for species-specific designs of lab-on-a-chip devices, and to `reverse-engineer' into efficient computer optimization algorithms. Third, the program will demonstrate information processing devices using microorganism motility in microfluidics, for biocomputation, i.e., devices with numerical inputs and outputs, and biosimulation, i.e., devices with microorganisms performing non-numerical operations. The synergistic sharing of two main knowledge foundations, i.e., microorganisms, and microfluidics, by all Objectives, makes the program achievable despite its broad scope. Importantly, the broad scope of the program will expose the trained HQP to a vast array of disciplinary and professional approaches and to many various application areas. The benefits for Canada are comprehensive and specific. The study of biological motility in mimetic micro-environments is relevant to medical, agricultural, and environmental applications, e.g., bacterial and fungal pathogenesis in humans, animals, and plants, bacterial movement in blood vessels during sepsis, soil microenvironment. The study of biological algorithms is relevant for the development of devices applied in medical, agricultural, and environmental areas, e.g., lab-on-a-chip devices for single cell genomics, for species identification in environmental field assessments, for rapid identification of bacteria in fast spreading infectious diseases, or hospital infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or diagnostics in remote areas lacking, or having difficult access to adequate medical infrastructure, or for health monitoring of military or space personnel. The study of information processing devices can have an impact on a wide range of computer algorithms for cryptography, and accelerated drug design, on optimization of national traffic and urban planning, or on fast response in major accidents disasters. While the research focus on microorganisms offers limited scope for sex, gender and diversity considerations, much of the impact of the proposed program has significant relevance for these aspects.