Multiscale Design Tools for Non-Homogeneous Microfluidic Biochips with Electronic/Optical Readout

"The overall objective of the project is to develop commercial quality, validated, multi-scale and multi-physics modeling and design tools for macroparticle/cells and macromolecule-laden flows in microdevices under the influence of hydrodynamic, thermal,chemical, AC/DC electric, optical and electromagnetic fields. These tools will provide comprehensive design and optimization support for all components of a biochip system including fluid transport, chemistry and transduction/detection. Themacroparticle-laden flow methodology developed in Phase I will be consolidated, and linked with AC and DC electrical fields for DEP, electrokinetic transport and capacitative detection. Two different methods for optical detection and cell-opticsinteraction will be incorporated: mesh-based electromagnetic field-based method and wave-optics based method. The macroparticle model will be enhanced o include a variety of surface forces: subgrid scale chemical binding, electrostatic, hydrophobic/philicetc., for cell-cell and cell-surface interaction. Reduced scale models for particle flow and detection will be generated from high-fidelity calculations and incorporated in the software for system level calculations of bio-chips. The tools will be linkedwith external software packages to provide hydrodymanic properties of macromolecules/proteins for flow computations. The filament/cluster model will also be extended to simulate motion of large polyelect