Mechanics and Computation / View source

for Microfluidic Tools for Metabolomics

=Prof. Todd Thorsen=
Department of Mechanical Engineering M.I.T.

In recent years, microfluidics has demonstrated novel methods of studying and culturing cells. Microfluidics is a continually growing field of biotechnology, where fluid samples in the nanoliter to microliter range may be manipulated in microfabricated channels in a manner analogous to the control of electrical signals in a microprocessor to automate complex biological and chemical laboratory procedures. Fluid flow at these small length scales is laminar, which presents both advantages (precise fluid control, reduced sample volumes, ability to perform biochemical processes in parallel, sample isolation) and certain tradeoffs (difficulties in fluid transport, mixing and surface chemistry) when adapting this technology to miniaturize and automate biological protocols. Assaying the local environment around cells to obtain temporal metabolic profiles is well suited to microfluidics, and has important applications in areas such as drug screening and cellular differentiation.  In this talk, I will discuss our recent work in both cell culture and metabolic assay development in software-programmable PDMS microfluidic devices.  With an emphasis on the design and development of microfluidic metabolomic chips with potential clinical applications,  our work on the development of devices for monitoring the health and suitability of embryos for in vitro fertilization and for the profiling of cancer cells for drug inhibition studies will be highlighted.

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