A microscopy set-up for laser-induced fluorescence high speed detection in microfluidic platforms

申请资金用于荧光显微镜高速成像装置，以在药物发现和患者监测应用的微流体平台上进行分析。 使用微流体技术实现化学和生物系统的自动化是自然科学中最近出现的一个令人兴奋的趋势。Elvira博士的研究计划旨在开发用于健康应用的高通量微流体平台，弥合学术研究和现实世界应用之间的差距。有两个主要的研究领域。第一个是开发体外仿生模型，以便在发现过程的早期预测候选药物的体内行为。这将使制药公司能够专注于最有前途的候选药物，并降低药物发现的成本。第二个是开发基于医院的微流体患者监测技术，该技术将专注于与领域专家的密切合作，以实现这些平台的最终商业化。这将为医生提供更快，更便宜，更准确的患者状态信息。 Elvira博士将于2017年1月开始担任维多利亚大学化学系新的终身助理教授。所要求的设备是必不可少的所有元素埃尔维拉博士的研究计划，在她的NSERC发现补助金。所要求的设备是一个显微镜设置在线，高通量激光诱导荧光检测和微流控平台分析。微流体技术允许在极快的时间范围内高度可控地操纵微米级的流体。这导致分析问题，因为检测速率必须在每秒数千的规模上，而且还因为检测的分析物的量非常小，因为检测体积通常在毫微微升到皮升的规模上。基于荧光的检测方法广泛用于微流体，因为它们是高度灵敏的（单细胞和单分子检测）和定量的。 如果所要求的设备不可用，Elvira博士将无法为她拟议的研究项目执行大部分检测和分析。此外，缺乏这种设备将限制Elvira博士团队中研究人员的培训，并使他们与其他微流体实验室的同行相比处于不利地位。

Funding is requested for a fluorescence microscopy high-speed imaging set-up to perform analytics on microfluidic platforms for drug-discovery and patient-monitoring applications. The miniaturisation of chemical and biological systems using microfluidic technologies is a recent but exciting trend in the natural sciences. Dr Elvira’s research program aims to develop high-throughput microfluidic platforms for health applications that bridge the gap between academic research and real-world application. There are two main research areas. The first is to develop in vitro biomimetic models that allow the prediction of the in vivo behaviour of drug candidates early on in the discovery process. This will enable pharmaceutical companies to focus on the most promising candidates and lower the costs of drug discovery. The second is to develop microfluidic hospital-based patient monitoring technologies, which will focus on close collaborations with domain specialists for the eventual commercialisation of these platforms. This will provide doctors with faster, cheaper and more accurate information on patient status. Dr Elvira will start her appointment as a new tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Victoria in January 2017. The equipment requested is essential for all elements of Dr Elvira’s research program, as described in her NSERC Discovery Grant. The equipment requested is a microscopy set-up for online, high-throughput laser-induced fluorescence detection and analysis in microfluidic platforms. Microfluidic technologies allow highly controllable manipulation of fluids on the micron scale in extremely fast timeframes. This causes problems with analysis since the rate of detection must be on the scale of thousands per second, but also because the amount of analyte detected is extremely small since detection volumes are usually on the scale of femto- to picolitres. Fluorescence-based detection methodologies are widely used in microfluidics because they are highly-sensitive (single cell and single molecule detection) and quantitative. If the equipment requested is not available, Dr Elvira will be unable to perform the majority of the detection and analytics for her proposed research program. In addition, the lack of this equipment will limit the training of researchers in Dr Elvira’s group and place them at a disadvantage compared to peers in other microfluidic laboratories.