Mr. Anup's Talk

Mar 17, 2010 - 16:00

Mar 17, 2010 - 17:30

Creativity Hall (Room No 118)

Seminars

Mr. Anup K. Singh Ph.D. Manager Biosystems Research & Development Department Sandia National Laboratories Mailstop 9291 7011 East Ave Livermore CA

Abstract: Emerging applications in biochemical analysis increasingly require large number of experiments performed in smaller amount of time. Moreover in most instances these ever-increasing number of experiments need to be performed using a limiting amount of starting biological sample. This requires scaling down of the analysis methods and analogous to the integrated microelectronic-chip revolution microfluidic chips are starting to transform the field of biochemical analysis. Many bio/chemical processes such as mixing dilution concentration transport separation and reaction can be integrated and automated in a single chip. These devices offer many advantages over conventional instruments because of their portability speed of analysis potential for multiplexing and high-throughput. In this talk I would present application of microfluidic chips in two areas--medical diagnostics and studying cell signaling. First example involves development of a point-of-care device (RapiDx) for detection of disease markers in bodily fluids (e.g. serum and saliva). RapiDx facilitates hands-free analysis by integrating sample pretreatment (filtering enrichment mixing) with electrophoretic immunoassays to quickly measure analyte concentrations in minimally pretreated serum and saliva samples. The heart of the device is a microfluidic chip to carry out rapid immunoassays (< 3-10 minutes) with low sample volume requirements (10 µL) and appreciable sensitivity (nM-pM). To date we have demonstrated detection of many clinical analytes including biomarkers of periodontal disease in saliva and biotoxins in exogenous serum samples. We are also developing an integrated microfluidic system for real-time interrogation of cells to study intracellular signaling. Cell signaling experiments currently are done using large number of cells and hence provide population-averaged data that in many instances may mask the underlying molecular mechanisms. Our approach takes advantage of assays enabled at microscale to provide spatially- and temporally-resolved measurement of signaling pathways in single cells. The integrated microfluidic platform is capable of high-throughput acquisition of quantitative protein expression translocation and modification information of single and small population of cells. The platform consists of multiple modules such as single-cell array cell sorter and phosphoflow chip to provide confocal imaging cell sorting and flow ytometry-based phosphorylation assays. The modules have been integrated into a portable package that can be mounted on a typical inverted microscope. The icrofluidic platform allows high-resolution imaging as well as quantitative proteomic measurements with high sensitivity