Microfluidic nanotechnology for bioanalytical determination of nucleic acid molecules and medicinal compounds

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Bioanalytical determinations conducted on naturally occurring plants, such as Cannabis (or marijuana) species, will generate knowledge on the identification of the proper species DNA, and on the extraction and quantitation of appropriate medicinal compounds.     The current knowledge gap is to find out appropriate amounts of such compounds obtained from the proper plant species that will generate suitable targeted medicinal and psychedelic effects. For instance, C. indica may consist of more beneficial cannabidiol (CBD) than C. sativa does. The knowledge gap is to be handled by the use of the innovative microfluidic nanotechnology.     The long-term goal of the microfluidic nanotechnology research program is to identify/confirm the proper Cannabis species and detect/quantify their appropriate medicinal compounds.     The short-term objectives over the next five years include nucleic acid testing, and chemical analysis. For nucleic acid testing, the general technique will be amplification tests achieved on plant samples by innovative microfluidic chips for low-volume liquid flow and by gold nanoparticles for molecular or DNA detection. This microfluidic biotechnology enables the molecular testing in order to make the test kits inexpensive and portable for field uses. For chemical analysis of medicinal compounds, the general approach is analytical separations, such as capillary electrophoresis. Using innovative microfluidic nanotechnology, we will integrate sample extraction and analytical separation that enables fast and accurate quantification of medicinal compounds.     For the first time, we obtain preliminary data on detecting DNA based on the coding gene for the enzyme that synthesizes the bioactive compounds. The expected outcomes are to identify the nucleic acids of the Cannabis species and to quantify the plant cannabinoids, such as CBD. Such molecular assays become increasingly important because of agricultural needs and fraud prevention. We are first on quantifying the medicinal compounds in cannabis by conventional analytical separations. We expect to obtain more accurate quantification data enabled by integrating upstream extraction with the microfluidic analytical separation downstream. Such assays are gaining importance recently because of the need of test kits for substance abuse prevention and legal enforcement.     For anticipated impact, the low-cost and portability of test kits are particularly important features for Canadian end users on-site with minimal training. For instance, for the indigenous communities, the test kits are user-friendly; they can analyze their plant samples on-site with a better control, rather than in remote labs that are out of their reach for cross-examinations. The bioanalytical determinations of cannabinoids in plant samples are more accurate when analyzed in the integrated microfluidic system.