STTR Phase II: Development of Bio-compatible and Bio-safe Cell Sorters

小企业技术转让（STTR）第二阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响将是细胞分选机，这是生命科学研究，动物繁殖和细胞治疗的新研究工具。 在过去的十年中，细胞分选仪在许多领域变得至关重要，例如分子和细胞生物学、免疫学、植物生物学、动物繁殖以及医学诊断和治疗。 尽管它们具有显著的影响，但目前的细胞分选仪具有以下缺点：高设备和维护成本、显著的生物安全问题以及降低的细胞活力和功能。这些缺点降低了细胞分选仪在许多重要研究和临床应用中的有效性。通过这项创新，研究人员将能够更好地了解疾病的原因，确定新的疗法，并测试新的药物和疫苗。 它还具有提高乳制品生产效率的潜力，并帮助医生做出更好的诊断和治疗决策。在第二阶段，目标是提高仪器的性能，并与最终用户验证性能。这个STTR第二阶段项目将证明基于微流体的、生物相容的、生物安全的荧光激活细胞分选仪的可行性。细胞分选仪是功能强大的高通量单细胞表征和纯化工具，对于分子生物学、病理学、植物生物学、干细胞生物学和医学诊断等领域的实验室至关重要。 该技术基于声流体（即，声学和微流体的融合）细胞分选芯片，其保持分选细胞的完整性和功能性。 目前的细胞分选系统由于高剪切应力、高冲击力和高驱动电压而降低了细胞活力、完整性和细胞功能，这降低了它们作为研究工具和在临床应用中的有效性。 与目前使用静电力分选细胞的细胞分选机需要12，000 V的驱动电压不同，所提出的技术使用声学镊子来分选细胞，并且仅需要10 V，这显著降低了细胞损伤。 与现有的细胞分选仪相比，所提出的微流体细胞分选仪将具有以下优点：1）高生物相容性; 2）高生物安全性;以及3）较低的成本和较低的维护。此外，细胞分选机将更容易被研究人员使用，并解决市场上现有的未满足的需求（例如，分选脆弱或敏感细胞，同时保持高活力和功能）。这将加速研究发现，并改善诊断和治疗。

The broader/commercial impact of the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will be a cell sorter, a new research tool for life science research, animal reproduction, and cell-based therapy. In the past decade, cell sorters have become vital in many fields, such as molecular and cellular biology, immunology, plant biology, animal reproduction, and medical diagnostics and therapeutics. Despite their significant impact, current cell sorters have the following drawbacks: high equipment and maintenance costs, significant bio-safety concerns, and reduced cell viability and function. These drawbacks reduce the effectiveness of cell sorters in many important research studies and clinical applications. Enabled by this innovation, researchers will be able to better understand the causes of diseases, identify new therapies, and test new drugs and vaccines. It also has the potential to improve dairy production efficiency, and aid medical doctors in making better decisions about diagnosis and treatment. In Phase II, the goal is to improve performance of the instrument, and validate the performance with end users.This STTR Phase II project will demonstrate the feasibility of a microfluidic-based, bio-compatible, bio-safe, fluorescence-activated cell sorter. Cell sorters are powerful, high-throughput, single-cell characterization and purification tools that are vital for labs in fields such as molecular biology, pathology, plant biology, stem cell biology, and medical diagnostics. The technology is based on acoustofluidic (i.e., the fusion of acoustics and microfluidics) cell sorting chips that preserve the integrity and functionality of sorted cells. Current cell sorting systems reduce cell viability, integrity, and cell function due to high shear stress, high impact force, and high driving voltage, which reduces their effectiveness as a research tool, and in clinical applications. Unlike current cell sorters that use electrostatic force to sort cells, which require 12,000 V of driving voltage, the proposed technology uses acoustic tweezers to sort cells, and requires only 10 V, which significantly reduces cell damage. Compared with existing cell sorters, the proposed microfluidic cell sorter will have the following advantages: 1) high bio-compatibility; 2) high bio-safety; and 3) lower costs and lower maintenance. In addition, the cell sorter will be more accessible to researchers and address existing unmet needs in the market (e.g., sorting fragile or sensitive cells while preserving high viability and function). This will accelerate research findings and improve diagnostics and therapeutics.