Magnetohydrodynamic-based Laboratories on a Chip

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): With the increased threat of bioterrorism, the development of autonomous devices for detecting biological and chemical agents has greater urgency. Microfluidic based laboratory-on-a-chip (LOC) devices could be placed throughout the environment to detect a biohazard before harm is done. Because of the large potential benefits of LOC and other applications, there are many approaches to microfluidics being developed. One approach that has received limited attention is magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) based microfluidics. Although for many applications MHD microfluidic devices have significant potential advantages compared to other microfluidic approaches, a key obstacle to the development of practical MHD microfluidic devices has been the tendency of the devices to generate bubbles which severely degrades their performance. However, the proposed work will utilize a patent pending approach to overcome this key obstacle. Our proposal is to develop a customizable MHD microfluidics platform with simulation tools for development of applications such as LOC devices without bubble generation. The proposed platform device can be used for transmission of fluids, stirring, biological interaction, thermal cycling and DNA amplification. Phase I will focus on device simulation and performance verification. The MHD microfluidics technology can potentially provide for the development of LOC devices with significant advantages compared to alternative approaches.