Mentored section: As part of the mentored project, the candidate would extend his published results of high-throughput multiantigen fluorescence microfluidic immunoassays (BioTechniques 40: 85-90) to more complex samples, such as human blood serum and plasma, thereby paving the way to portable microfluidic blood test systems. Relevance: Portable microfluidic blood tests would produce major savings in cost and time in modern biomedical diagnostics with concomitant savings in healthcare in general. Such systems would also use finger-prick amounts of sample, eliminating the need for phlebotomy and the danger of hematomas, as well as making blood tests more accessible to pediatric patients, particularly infants. Low costs and small amounts of sample would also mean more frequent and ubiquitous testing, resulting in earlier diagnosis and thus saving lives. Independent research section: The applicant has a detailed plan outlined further below and including microfluidic immunoassays for viral detection, nanodetector and microfluidics integration for portable diagnostic devices, devices for large-scale cellular screening, on-chip PCR machine for on-the-spot forensic analysis, nested bioarrays for nanomedicine chips, DNA intercalator-separator of unknown samples, and a microfluidic cellular transfector.
