13:00 | Networking Luncheon in the Exhibit Hall -- Network with the Exhibitors, View Posters and Engage with Colleagues |
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Session Title: POC Diagnostics and Microfluidics-Lab-on-a-Chip Fields and Trends Therein: Applications Focus |
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Chairperson: Dr. Claudia Gärtner, CEO, microfluidic ChipShop |
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14:00 |  A Novel Method for High Throughput Lyobead Formation in Diagnostic Kit Manufacturing
Rob Rich, Director of Sales, North America (West), BioDot, Inc.
Lyophilization and lyophilized products have been a foundational aspect of diagnostic kit manufacturing for decades. While cake lyophilization can address product stability, cold chain management, and material shipping weight issues, the formulation and formation of individual lyophilized beads offer developers and manufacturers with new dimensions in dose management, precision, and flexibility. Effectiveness and yields in lyobead formation are driven by volume precision and consistency in morphology. The BioJet™ dispensing technology from BioDot™ addresses each these critical aspects of lyobead production, all at high throughput. We will discuss the data and technology behind this novel approach.
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14:30 |  Crystal Clear in Brilliant Shape – New Area in Glass Microfluidics
Claudia Gärtner, CEO, microfluidic ChipShop GmbH
A cooperation between Glassomer and microfluidic ChipShop.
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15:00 |  | Keynote Presentation Towards Wearable Biosensing and Microfluidic Technologies
Martyn Boutelle, Professor of Biomedical Sensors Engineering, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
The concentration of biomarker molecules can give important information about the physiological ‘well-being’ of a person. In Healthcare this is emerging as the personalization of healthcare – where data is used to track the progression of illness and the effects of treatment in a patient at the individual level, rather than using the population average. In lifestyle/fitness monitoring data can track the move from ‘wellness’ to exhaustion, fatigue, and dehydration. Our view is that to do such monitoring effectively ideally requires moment-by-moment measurement of concentration. This can be achieved by well-designed microfluidic devices incorporating a range of sensing technologies, or by using robust direct reading sensors. These are then controlled by miniaturized wearable instrumentation connected by Bluetooth to a tablet or phone to allow data conditioning. We have been developing a range of biosensing solutions for the invasive, minimally invasive, and non-invasive monitoring of people. I will describe the key challenges in the development of such wearable biosensing devices and present recent data demonstrating personal chemical monitoring in the fitness and healthcare realms. |
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15:30 |  | Keynote Presentation Detection of Cancer Related Protease Biomarkers from Blood Spot Cards – “Transition to Viable Companion Diagnostics for Cancer”
Michael Heller, Professor, Dept Bioengineering, University of California-San Diego, United States of America
Proteases represent a large class of enzymes that degrade proteins and have been associated with a wide range of diseases, including cardiovascular; coagulation disorders; inflammatory diseases, diabetes, sepsis; infectious diseases and cancer. While proteases have seen some limited use in disease diagnostics, their full potential has not been exploited. At our UCSD lab we have developed rapid sample to answer protease assays based on fluorescent charge-changing peptide substrates. These liquid biopsy assays can be carried our using small volumes (5ul-10ul) of whole blood, plasma or serum. No sample preparation is required, and the fluorescent peptide products can be detected in about 30 minutes using simple mini-gel electrophoretic formats. We now have significant results showing the elevation of specific proteases (trypsin, chymotrypsin, MMPs and Cathepsins) in pancreatic (PDAC) and other cancers. We also have preliminary results showing protease biomarkers can be detected from samples applied to “Blood Spot Cards.” Use of blood spot cards would represent a paradigm change with major advantages including they require only a small blood sample (5-10ul), are cost $$$ effective (compared to a blood draw tube) and would allow time course studies and companion diagnostics to be carried out (hours, days, weeks). |
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16:00 |  | Keynote Presentation Developing Novel Point of Care Diagnostics to Detect SARS-CoV-2
Danilo Tagle, Director, Office of Special Initiatives, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH (NCATS), United States of America
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Rapid Acceleration
of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative to meet the needs for COVID-19
diagnostic and surveillance testing, and also to speed its innovation in
the development, commercialization, and implementation of new
technologies and approaches. The RADx Radical (RADx-rad) initiative is
one component of the RADx program which focuses on the development of
new, or non-traditional applications of existing approaches, to enhance
their usability, accessibility, and/or accuracy for the detection of
SARS-CoV-2. This presentation will elaborate on two RADx rad programs
led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences on 1)
pivoting technologies being developed for the isolation of exosomes
towards screening and detection for SARS-CoV-2 viral infection due to
the similar physical and chemical properties between exosomes and
SARS-CoV-2 virus; and 2) developing novel biosensing capabilities using
electronic nose technologies to detect unique signatures of volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) of those with COVID-19 (Screening for COVID-19
by Electronic-Nose Technology (SCENT)). |
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16:30 |  | Keynote Presentation Developing Original Droplet-based Digital PCR Assays to Detect Circulating Biomarkers
Valérie Taly, CNRS Research Director, Professor and Group leader Translational Research and Microfluidics, Université Paris Cité, France
Technological innovations such as droplet-based digital PCR has been instrumental in the recent developments that we have seen in the use of liquid biopsy for patient follow-up. Development of new assays and their application within large clinical studies will be presented. Applications to both cancer and covid 19 patient follow up will be exemplified. |
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17:00 |  Precise Contactless Spotting for Lab-on-Chip Applications
Wilhelm Meyer, Managing Director, Microdrop Technologies GmbH
Lab-on-chip devices are used for a wide variety of health care applications, especially in the area of point-of-care diagnostics. These small microfluidic devices equipped with microchannels, chambers and other features carry out diagnostic tests by enabling reactions between patient samples and reagents. The devices deliver test results with very small sample volumes and in a short period of time. For production of lab-on-chip devices a precise and fast material deposition method is needed. Typically, the devices are produced at high numbers under high throughput conditions. The substrates may be made of different materials e.g. polystyrene or silicone, but in common is that these substrates typically have a structured surface which may consist of channels, mixing chambers or even wells which are used for precise detection. Also, different coating materials are used as pretreatment for better adhesion of reagents or confinement of fluids. Deposition or Spotting of reagents onto the chip is a demanding task and requires the filling of small cavities and microchannels with a high accuracy. This can efficiently be done with a microspotting platform based on in inkjet technology. The flexibility of this technology allows for custom-made solutions adapted to the specific customer needs. Especially how high accuracy concerning volume of spotted reagents and also precision of placement is achieved under high throughput production conditions is demonstrated by examples. Beside aqueous reagents (e.g. DNA- or protein solutions), Hydrogels and Cell suspensions are coming come more into focus as a material for the construction of organoids and similarly complex structures. The printing of Matrigels is explained with an example here.
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17:30 | Laplace Pressure Tuned Liquid-Metal Non-Spherical Micro-Droplet (Plug) Generator
Sagar Bhagwat, Research Fellow, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK), Germany
Gallium-based liquid metal non-spherical droplets (plugs) are fascinating materials owing to their exceptionally high surface tension (~600-700 mN m-1), low viscosity (twice that of water), negligible vapor pressure and high electrical conductivity (~3.4 × 106 S m-1), and have seen applications in microfluidics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), micro-actuators, switches, valves, radio-frequency and reconfigurable devices, and sensor technology. Typically, flow-focusing devices or manual injection inside narrow channels are the techniques used to generate liquid metal plugs. However, plug size control and reproducibility of the plugs is a major challenge hampering the use of such plugs. We developed a plug generator with a channel which includes chambers and constrictions that are optimally designed by tuning their respective Laplace pressures. We show that by having a chamber with lower Laplace pressure compared to a constriction exerting higher Laplace pressure, the liquid metal will be forced to fill the chamber than the constriction. We further presented liquid metal plugs of various aspect ratios for channel widths of 0.5, 0.8 and 1 mm with constriction width of 0.1 mm. This method allows control over liquid-metal plug size, reproducibility and provides a reliable way to generate plugs directly on-chip and on-demand for microfluidic applications. |
18:00 | Clarification of the Aerotaxis of Dictyostelium Discoideum in Microfluidic Device with Oxygen Controllability
Satomi Hirose, PhD Candidate and Researcher, Tohoku University, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Japan
The aerotactic migration of Dictyostelium discoideum, a typical model organism regarding eukaryotic cell motility, was revealed by using the newly developed microfluidic device with oxygen controllability. |
18:30 | A Barrier Tissue Model with an Ultrathin Nanoporous Membrane and Open-Well to Flow-Enhanced Reconfiguration Capability
Mehran Mansouri, Researcher, Rochester Institute of Technology, United States of America
Despite the fact that they are unable to introduce physiological fluid flows, conventional membrane-based approaches (e.g., Transwell inserts) remain the gold standard to create barrier tissue models. Here, a barrier tissue platform with a 100 nm thick nanoporous membrane was developed that features reconfiguration capability between static and flow-enhanced culture modes. This platform allows users to conduct experiments using standard open-well protocols, and then add microfluidic capabilities to the culture when desired. As a demonstration, an endothelial barrier was established in a standard open-well format and then reconfigured to the microfluidic mode to induce shear alignment of cells. The results show that 89±4.9 % of cells aligned in the direction of flow while cells in the static condition remained randomly orientated. After shear-induced alignment of cells, the platform was reconfigured to the open-well format for mRNA isolation. The flow-stimulated cells up-regulated the expression of the shear-sensitive transcription factor KLF2 and the downstream production of eNOS 6.7x and 3.4x, respectively. To highlight high-resolution live imaging and flow capabilities, the device was reconfigured into microfluidic mode and different steps of leukocytes transmigration in response to chemical gradient were visualized. This platform enables more widespread use of flow-enhanced barrier models in bioscience laboratories. |
19:00 | Cost-Efficient Optical-Electrical Nanobiosensors for Pandemics and More
Arben Merkoçi, ICREA Professor and Director of the Nanobioelectronics & Biosensors Group, Institut Català de Nanociencia i Nanotecnologia (ICN2), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Spain
Health care system worldwide is facing several challenges. Aging of the population, chronic disease, spending on health and pandemics request a novel generation of diagnostics platforms. While conventional labs and their clinical analysis instruments are quite important given their sensitivity, information capability including their suitability for suitability for basic research they still suffer from issues such as their high costs, being time consuming, requesting sophisticated equipment, trained users, certain facilities etc. Point of care devices (POC) are a great alternative to face overall urgent needs but also for our everyday health care. The development of POCs is one of the most important R&D in the area of health diagnostics. There is a high demand to develop innovative and cost effective devices with interest for health care. These devices should be REASSURED: Real-time connectivity, Ease of specimen collection, Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly, Rapid, Robust, Equipment-free, Delivered to those who need it. The development of such devices is strongly related to new materials and technologies being nanomaterials and nanotechnology of special role. How to design simple plastic/paper-based biosensor architectures including wearables through printing or stamping? How to tune their analytical performance upon demand? How one can couple nanomaterials with paper/plastics and what is the benefit? Which are the perspectives to link these simple platforms and detection technologies with mobile communication? I will try to give responses to these questions through various interesting with extreme interest for clinical emergency applications related to virus and other important biomarkers. These devices and corresponding technologies are related to ubiquitous methods that would be quite important for POC diagnostics related to pandemics and more. |
19:30 | Close of Conference Day |