The dufflebag project: development of a microfluidic point-of-care system for infectious disease diagnosis

从禽流感到埃博拉病毒感染的传染病是加拿大和全球最严重的卫生紧急情况之一。目前的诊断方法，如细胞培养，ELISA和PCR遭受不准确，高成本和冗长的程序。因此，开发新的床旁（POC）诊断工具已成为一种日益增长的趋势，而微流体装置由于其小型化、精确流体控制、低成本和高通量等优点而被认为是一种重要的使能技术。探索新的微流控诊断分析需要了解微米级流体行为的独特物理和化学原理，先进的微制造技术和工程设计，以及与生物，光学传感和数据分析组件的有效系统集成。在这个方向上，拟议的项目将开发一种新的基于抗体的传染病POC诊断分析在微流控设备。通过与工业赞助商和纳米纤维，光子学和免疫学的几个学术研究小组的密切合作，我们将开发和优化微流控设备的功能原型，并将其与基于抗体阵列的光子诊断分析相结合。该项目结束时，开发的原型将准备进行临床测试，并在下一阶段继续商业化途径。该项目将为包括博士后和研究生在内的几名高素质人员提供丰富的物理，化学，工程，生物和机械接口的研究和开发培训，以及独特的工业经验。

Infectious diseases ranging from avian influenza to Ebola virus infection are among the most serious health emergencies in Canada and globally. Current diagnosis methods such as cell culture, ELISA and PCR suffer from inaccuracy, high-cost and lengthy procedures. Therefore, there has been a growing trend to develop new point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tools, and microfluidic devices are considered an important enabling technology owing to its advantages in miniaturization, precise fluidic control, low-cost and high-throughput. Exploration of new microfluidic diagnostic assays require understanding of the unique physical and chemical principles of fluidic behaviors at the micrometer scale, advanced microfabrication techniques and engineering designs, and effective system integration with biological, optical sensing and data analysis components. In this direction, the proposed project will develop a novel antibody-based infectious disease POC diagnosis assay in a microfluidic device. Through close collaboration with the industrial sponsor and several academic research groups in nanofabrication, photonics and immunology, we will develop and optimize functional prototypes of the microfluidic device, and integrate it with the antibody-array based photonic diagnostic assay. At the end of this project, the developed prototype will be ready for clinical testing and proceeding with commercialization pathway in the next stage. This project will enable rich research and development training at the interfaces of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology and mechine, as well as unique industrial experience for several highly qualified personnel including postdoc and graduate students.