Electrokinetic Micropump

We are developing a compact, disposable micropump with no moving parts for controllable delivery of pharmacological agents and drugs.  The concept is based on a traveling-wave electrothermal flow phenomenon coupled with inline impedance or optical flow sensing based on impedance or optical measurement, leading to automated and precise flow control. Pump is capable of providing flow rates in the range of 0.1-100 mL/hr with only the application of modest AC voltages (5-50V). Particularly accurate and robust performance is expected at the lower end of the operating range.

Nanoparticle uptake

The effectiveness of nanoparticle-based gene delivery vehicles is routinely characterized using transfection assays in static, cell-culture environments.  However, in-vivo transfection processes predominantly take place in a microcirculation environment. We have utilized our novel in-vitro toolkit, synthetic microvascular network (link to cell-based assays page), which reproduces the effect of microcirculation geometry and hemodynamic parameters to study nanaoparticle transfection efficiencies. Choice of primary or immortalized cell lines are cultured in these synthetic microvascular networks (SMN) on polymer (PDMS) substrate. Subsequently, the cells are perfused at physiological shear rates and uptake/transfection efficiencies are studied. Shown here is a BHK-21 cell transfected with a GFP encoding gene delivered using a promising lipo-polymeric nanoparticle (Arrest-In™) delivery system (courtesy: Expression Genetics, Huntsville AL). Our research suggests a significant effect of flow on nanoparticle uptake and transfection efficiencies. Same studies can be used to study cytotoxicity in a physiologically real environment.

Nanoparticle (Arrest-In) uptake	GFP Expression	Cytotoxicity Measurement of Nanoparticles

Microcantilever DNA Chip

Thermal Gradient PCR