Microfluidic modelling and optimisation of statistical design for shape measurement in resistive pulse sensing: pilot project

一家果汁公司需要一种有效的方法来监测饮料的细菌污染。一个海洋保护研究小组需要一种方法来检测和表征海水和海洋动物胃液中的微和纳米塑料污染。开发噬菌体疗法的研究人员需要能够分辨出样本中活性噬菌体的比例。这些应用中的每一个都需要一种检测和表征悬浮在液体中的非常小的颗粒的方法。阻性脉冲传感(RPS)是一种用于计算和确定溶液中微米到纳米级颗粒的尺寸分布的技术。PI和她的合作者最近的工作表明，RPS技术也有可能为这些粒子提供形状信息。将这种能力添加到RPS技术中，将有可能区分不同的细菌(杆状和球状)，表征微塑料和纳米塑料的形状(据信这会影响它们的生物活性)，并区分样本中的活性噬菌体和非活性噬菌体。该研究项目将开发RPS传感器中微流体、静电学和脉冲产生的三维模型，以适应一系列孔几何和颗粒形状。然后，这将被用来开发统计优化的孔设计和信号处理算法，这将首次允许RPS技术产生颗粒的形状测量。在与开发新型RPS传感器的分析科学研究人员以及饮料行业、海洋保护和噬菌体研究的最终用户合作下，将实现孔设计，并在一系列相关样本上测试信号处理算法，以生产下一代RPS设备。

A fruit juice company needs an efficient way to monitor beverages for bacterial contamination. A marine conservation research group needs a way to detect and characterise micro and nanoplastic contamination in ocean water and in the stomach fluids of marine animals. A researcher developing bacteriophage therapies needs to be able to tell the proportion of active phages in a sample. Each of these applications requires a method for detecting and characterising very small particles suspended in liquids. Resistive Pulse Sensing (RPS) is a technology that has been used for counting and determining the size distributions for micro to nano scale particles in solution. Recent work by the PI and her collaborators has demonstrated that RPS technology also has the potential to yield shape information for such particles. Adding this capacity to RPS technology would make it possible to distinguish different bacteria (rod shaped versus sphere shaped), characterise the shape of micro and nanoplastics (which is believed to influence their bioactivity), and distinguish active from inactive phages in a sample. This research project will develop a three dimensional model of the microfluidics, electrostatics and pulse generation in RPS sensors for a range of pore geometries and particle shapes. This will then be used to develop a statistically optimised pore design and a signal processing algorithm that will for the first time permit RPS technology to produce a shape measurement for particles. In collaboration with researchers in analytical science developing novel RPS sensors, as well as with end-users from the drinks industry, marine conservation and bacteriophage research, the pore design will be realised, and the signal processing algorithm tested on a range of relevant samples to produce a next generation RPS device.