Effective National Defense against bio-terrorism demands safe, rapid identification of the pathogens used by terrorists. We will build an inexpensive, table top, cell sorter (flow cytometer) for rapid, safe processing of bio-hazardous cells and materials in the Bio-safety Level-4 environment. (BSL-4). Unlike other """"""""Iab-on-a-chip"""""""" designs, ours promises ultra-high-throughput, due to our unique, (patent pending) massively series-parallel design. We estimate we can separate single rare cells from background populations up to 1,OOO-fold faster than current designs allow. The key to our miniature and massively series-parallel design is that we have eliminated the complex, bulky lasers and photo-multiplier detector equipment of today's cell sorter. Instead, we will use cheap semiconductor light sources, such as LED's, diode lasers, or VCELS, and semiconductor photo-detectors, such as photodiodes, diode arrays, and CCD's. Indeed, with filter coating applied to small pixel clusters, a single CCD can analyze an entire emission spectrum. In Phase I we will evaluate and select among competing micro-photonic and micro-fluidic (valving) approaches. We will also build a bench-model prototype sorter and demonstrate 3 stages of series-parallel II sorting. In Phase """""""", we will build a multistage prototype for testing by Dr. C.J. Peters' team in the UTMB SL-4 laboratory This provides us a unique opportunity to obtain an accurate bio-safety testing system as applied to bio-defense applications, including CDC A-Level pathogens. Commercial Opportunities: Our sealed, portable, and ultra-high throughput sorter will find broad use in bio-defense and also in HTP sorting of cells (or beads, or particles) for stem cell therapy, genomics, proteomics, and combinatorial chemistry applications.
