Microfluidics

Understanding tumor growth on dish has always been a challenge for its complex nature. It involves cell to cell contact between multiple cell types, complex tissue 3D architecture, tissue rigidity, designing nearby blood vessels etc. In the proposed work, we plan to develop “Brain Cancer Tumor on Chip.” The project will have multiple parts such as developing blood vessels on chip, developing brain tumor micro-environment, and then finally assembling all the parts together.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in India and accounts for 14% of all cancers in women with high prevalence and mortality rate. However, one of the major hindrances in drug discovery as well as drug screening is unavailability of suitable model system to mimic true tumor microenvironment (TME). In this project, the student will design and fabricate microfluidics based devices to generate 3D particles and core-shell microcapsules to mimic TME.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the cancers having the lowest 5-year survival rate, because of its late diagnosis and availability of only a couple of known drugs with very moderate increase in patient’s survival. Based on our earlier work, we have shown that, nanoparticle mediated delivery of existing drugs can enhance the cytotoxicity in cancer cells.

Droplet microfluidics is an emerging technology in the fields of cell biology, disease diagnostics, drug discovery, etc. The versatility of droplet microfluidics lies in the ability to generate and manipulate picoliter volume droplets with a high throughput. Droplet manipulation includes fusion, fission, sorting, guiding, trapping, etc.

An estimated 700 million Indians live in rural areas with most not having accessing to even basic medical facilities. This leads to deaths despite diseases that are curable and preventable. Around 30% of patients travel more than 30km to seek basic healthcare. Our research group has been working on compact, point-of-care blood cell counter that measures the complete blood count, which is the most basic test to asses one's health.

Continuous monitoring of water quality parameters, like total dissolved solids, heavy metals, inorganic ions, organic pollutants etc.is an important measurement, to ascertain quality and use of a water body. This is critical for both a flowing water-stream (river, canal) or a stagnant water-pool, like a lake.