PROTOTYPING AND TESTING BASIC DESIGNS OF CENTRIFUGAL MIRCOFLUIDIC PLATFORMS FOR BIOMEDICAL DIAGNOSTICS
Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco Cantamessa, Dorian Marjanovic, Monica Bordegoni
Author: Fox, Stephan Cecil; Lohmeyer, Quentin; Meboldt, Mirko
Series: ICED
Institution: ETH Zuerich, Switzerland
Section: Design for Life
Page(s): 341-350
ISBN: 978-1-904670-64-3
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
This paper presents a design approach, based on the idea to develop a product that allows a considerably faster diagnose of bacterial infections in the physicians office and thus, supports avoiding the unnecessary use of antibiotics. Nowadays, physicians send probes to central labs for diagnoses. These Labs usually use either manual work or microfluidic platforms. Most microfluidic platforms require expensive machinery for realizing complex motion sequences. However, there also is a cost-efficient alternative: centrifugal microfluidic platforms, which are also known as lab-on-a-disk . In order to control flows, these disks take advantage of centrifugal forces, which can be easily regulated via rotation speed. In a first step, the technical feasibility was investigated with focus on basic designs of centrifugal microfluidic platforms for reliable controlling flows, only by regulation of rotation speed. The channel and reservoir designs were evaluated based on the results gained by physical testing of a lab-on-a-disk prototype in operation. The results and implications support the further development of a fully automated diagnostic device to be used as point-of-care.
Keywords: Biomedical Design, Prototyping, Testing, Lab-On-A-Disk