Dielectrophoretic Microfluidic Protein Analysis System

To address the U.S. Army CBD need for a low-cost, universal, robust, and fieldable device for rapid, reproducible identification of protein variants from biological samples with high throughput, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Dielectrophoretic Microfluidic Protein Analysis (DiMiPA) system. The system is based on an electrodeless dielectrophoresis-based, continuous-flow protein separation technique followed by protein identification via detection of the separated protein bands by UV absorption spectrometry. The DiMiPA system will be composed of a microfluidic chip, AC power supply, miniature pump, and readout unit. The DiMiPA tool will rapidly (10 min) and with high resolution and reproducibility separate protein variants from a mixture, preparing them for identification by the readout unit. The DiMiPA system will be an inexpensive, portable, and easy-to-use automated instrument. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate the feasibility of the DiMiPA device by fabricating a prototype and demonstrating its capability to identify relative concentrations of allozymes of sulfotransferase (SULT1A1), SULT1A1*1 and SULT1A1*3, which differ from each other by a single amino acid, in a mixed sample. In Phase II, DiMiPA will be optimized to enhance system throughput and separation resolution and identify additional sets of allozymes besides those of SULT1A1.