STTR Phase I: On-chip integration of sample preparation and monitoring with dielectrophoretic cell isolation

小型企业技术转让(STTR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是一个根据细胞的生物物理特性分离细胞的平台。该平台将帮助分离不丰富的细胞，并使研究它们在生物功能和癌症等疾病中的作用成为可能。具体来说，单芯片平台将进行样品的制备、操作和监测，大大减少了样品处理步骤，从而保证了细胞活力的保持和样品一致性的提高。这一回收的样本对于再生医学和癌症管理中基于细胞的疗法的发展至关重要。这个小企业技术转移(STTR)第一阶段项目将开发一个电子功能的微流控样本处理平台，用于细胞的表型选择性恢复，基于其生物物理属性，允许区分样本介质中感兴趣的细胞的不同电生理属性。具体地说，将开发微流控设计，将复杂生物基质中的细胞交换到优化的缓冲器中，以实现细胞操作，并将开发仪器，用于在表型选择性细胞恢复过程的不同阶段对样本进行芯片监测。这些设计将进行优化，以提高选择纯度，同时保持高细胞收集效率，以便回收的样本可以丰富感兴趣的细胞表型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is a platform to isolate cells based on their biophysical properties. The platform will help isolate cells that are not abundant and enable study of their role in biological function and diseases such as cancer. Specifically, a single chip platform will carry out sample preparation, manipulation, and monitoring, greatly reducing the sample handling steps and thereby ensuring the maintenance of cell viability and improvement in sample consistency. This recovered sample is essential for the development of cell-based therapies in regenerative medicine and cancer management.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop an electrically functional microfluidic sample manipulation platform for phenotype-selective recovery of cells, based on their biophysical attributes that allow discrimination between distinct electrophysiological properties for the cells of interest within the sample media. Specifically, microfluidic designs will be developed to swap cells from complex biological matrices into an optimized buffer for enabling cell manipulation, and the instrumentation will be developed for on-chip monitoring of the sample during various stages of the phenotype-selective cell recovery process. The designs will be optimized for enhanced levels of selection purity, while maintaining high cell collection efficiencies, so that the recovered sample is enriched for cell phenotypes of interest.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.