A microfluidic device that generates arrays of droplets with concentration gradients

Texas Tech University System Office of Technology Commercialization
posted on 07/15/2011

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Invention Title

A microfluidic device that generates arrays of droplets with concentration gradients

Screening (drugs, biomarkers), Genetic Analysis, Proteomics, Cellular Assays and Biomedical Diagnostics.

Executive Summary

The present invention describes a novel microfluidic device that allows high-throughput screening (HTS) for biological analysis including drug discovery, cellular assays, DNA analysis, protein crystallization and biomedical diagnostics. The technology developed at Texas Tech University offers a facile way to generate spatially defined arrays of nanoliter (billionth of a liter) volumes of fluids in an enclosed device with each individual volume containing a unique composition. For example, 384 nanoliter volumes can be arrayed in the device with the concentration of a reagent varying by 100,000 times using only one microliter of reagent. Fluid mixing and dilutions are made without using any moving parts or external force fields. The device is about the size of a penny and uses only a single pressure source and sample tubing for operation. This vast reduction in complexity and reagent volumes overcomes all of the challenges associated with today's HTS technologies enabling low-cost-high-value target screening in a variety of biological applications.

Product Description

The current gold standard for high throughput screening is the multi-well plate technology aided by robotic dispensing. For example, in drug-discovery 100,000 compounds are routinely screened using microtiter plates consuming microliters of sample volumes. The costs associated with infrastructure and sample reagents run in tens of millions of US dollars. Our technology allows generating arrays of nanoliter volumes in a microfluidic device, with each volume having a different composition of reagents, without the use of robotic arms. Particulate matter such as beads, cells can be encapsulated in each volume and treated with multiple reagents of varying composition. In summary, our technology can provide a faster, cheaper and more effective way to screen high-value targets in bioassays.

Inventor Background

Prof. Siva A. Vanapalli is in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University.  He received PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2006.  His research interests include microfluidics and engineering devices for cancer diagnostics.

Publications

Sun, M., Bithi, S. S. and Vanapalli, S. A. "Static microfluidic droplet arrays with tunable gradients in material composition", Nature Materials, Submitted, 2011.

Bithi, S. S. and Vanapalli, S. A. "Behavior of a train of droplets in a fluidic network with hydrodynamic traps", Biomicrofluidics, 4, 044110, 2010.