Steve Soper,
Foundation Distinguished Professor; Director, Center of BioModular Multi-scale System for Precision Medicine, Adjunct Professor, Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology

Training Course Title:  Plastic-based Microfluidics and Nanofluidics

Training Course Date: November 28, 2023

Training Course Timings: 08:00am to 10:00am -- The Slate Room, Laguna Hills, California

Scope and Coverage of this Training Course:

This workshop will offer participants the opportunity to learn about building functional devices in thermoplastics, such as PMMA, polycarbonate (PC), cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), and cyclic olefin polymer (COP) as well as other plastics and become familiar with the advantages of using plastic microfluidics. Different methods for building molding tools with mixed scales (nm ? mm) will be discussed and then, different methods for producing plastic devices (rapid prototyping to high-scale production). Participants will learn about device assembly, modifying the surface properties of plastics and become familiar with a number of important application areas – microfluidics and nanofluidics for biological/biomedical applications. Below is a list of topical areas that will be covered in this workshop.

Specific Topics Covered in this Training Course:

• General overview of plastics and comparison to glass, silicon, and PDMS devices
• Rapid prototyping of plastic devices
• Making molding tools with mixed scale structures (nm ? mm)
• Reproducing structures in plastics using hot embossing, injection molding, and nanoimprinting
• Device assembly (placing cover plates over molding plastic substrates)
• Surface modification of plastics (UV/O₃ and O₂ plasma activation of plastics and appending biologics to the activated plastic surfaces)
• Biological and biomedical applications of microfluidic and nanofluidic plastic-based devices (microfluidics – microchip electrophoresis, solid-phase extraction of DNA/RNA, and proteins, affinity selection of circulating tumor cells and extracellular vesicles; nanofluidics – stretching DNA for site-specific recognition of altered nucleotide bases, nanoscale electrophoresis, nanopore sensors)