SBIR Phase I: Affordable Microfluidics-based Educational Kits and Custom Instruments for Students and Biologists

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project is to develop an affordable suite of modular devices and software that makes it easy to design, assemble, and automate a custom bioinstrument. The goal is to provide biologists with an effective method to employ microfluidic tools and automation to accelerate scientific progress and commercialize new technologies. Microfluidic technologies promise revolutionary improvements in diagnostics and life sciences, but their market penetration is hampered by high costs, a lack of available instruments, and ineffective training curricula. The components of this suite will be designed to be inexpensive and re-usable, so when the biologists' needs change, they can be repurposed. The software will be designed to provide step-by-step assembly instructions and automatically configure devices, so making an instrument will be like putting together a Lego set. The technology may be used to train high school and college students in real-world laboratory techniques. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop modular devices and software that will enable biologists to produce custom bioinstrumentation to accelerate their research. The Phase I effort will focus on new microfluidics tools and will include prototyping and testing. This development proceeds on three fronts: 1) Implementing the software to allow simultaneous and nested automation-script execution. This allows virtualizing instruments into blocks and hiding operational complexities from users. 2) Expanding device functionality to include thermal control, e.g., for rapid PCR, incubation, sterilization, etc., and to perform accurate, pulse-free, high-temporal-response fluid dispensing for droplet generation, HPLC, sample preparation, etc. 3) Prototyping and refining user-interface and curriculum materials on biology and engineering students in high school and college to find effective graphical interfaces for instrument design and assembly. In Phase II, the plan is to incorporate these interfaces into the software, so top-level design is intuitive, and instrument assembly follows clear step-by-step visual instructions.