1266193 University of California-Irvine (UC-I); Abraham Lee 1266195 University of Cincinnati; Ian Papautsky
The proposed center will develop low-power, automated, self-contained, mass-produced micro-devices capable of multi-step biochemical assessments. University of California, Irvine (UC-I) and the University of Cincinnati (UCINN) are collaborating to establish the proposed center, with UCI as the lead institution.
The goal of the proposed Center is to develop advanced manufacturing technologies for ubiquitious diagnostics and assessment of the environment, agriculture, and human health. The goals of this proposed Center will be achieved via three coordinated basic and applied research thrust areas: Manufacturable Processes and Materials, Sample Processing and Detection, and Integration and Control Systems. This Center would result in (a) advances that can be transferred to industrial stakeholders for product development, (b) technologies that feed into government laboratories for further application-specific development, and (c) the education and training of a cadre of specialized scientists and engineers skilled in low-cost manufacturable microfluidic biochip innovation.
Broader impacts include competitive recruitment mechanisms and attractive cross-disciplinary collaborative graduate research opportunities to engage excellent students, including members of underrepresented groups. In addition to traditional and conferences, knowledge dissemination includes an open-source "microfluidic function library" containing design specifications for microfluidic circuits and interchangeable components organized by application and chip manufacturing processes. Scalable prototyping processes also will be disseminated to academia and industry, including established companies and entrepreneurs, with a goal to dramatically reduce the learning curve and streamline the idea-to-product process.
The Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integration Microfluidics (CADMIM) has been initiated to concentrate and deploy resources and people, to launch a transformation in ubiquitous diagnostics comparable to the advanced that led to the massive availability of inexpensive consumer electronics. The strategy for this grand challenge centers on mass produced diagnostic devices equipped with microfluidic components, chip sized devices with high sensitivities and short reaction times, capable of chemical analyses in miniaturized volumes. Despite the many advances in academic laboratories to date, few microfluidic systems have comprehensive sample-to-answer capability. The few extant commercial microfluidic systems are expensive ($1000s to 100000s), typically consisting of a disposable chip with limited functionality that relies on a customized external "reader." With funds from this planning grant, we held a successful planning meeting May 7-8, 2013 at the University of California, Irvine (UCI campus). UCI is the lead site and University of Cincinnati (UC) is the sister site in this 2-site I/UCRC. At the meeting, faculty from UCI and UC presented an overview of the I/UCRC and proposed projects that could be pursued in Y1 of the center. NSF also presented an overview of the I/UCRC program. The meeting was attended by over 40 companies of various sizes and spanning many different business spaces (health care, agriculture, government labs, consumer products, etc). There is definitely excitement and comradery surrounding this new center. Through our discussions with inducsty both pre- and post-planning meeting, we learned much about the needs of the companiesin terms of microfludics and labs-on-a-chip. This knowledge has shaped and will continue to shape our project portfolio. The nature of our research is multi-disciplinary, and CADMIM faculty with various backgrounds have jointly proposed projects that are of high interest to the IAB. In addition to holding a successful planning meeting, other outcomes include: (a) development of a center website that serves as the main information portal; (b) development of a membership agreement for industry and academic members; (c) stronger relationships between faculty and companies that will form the inaugural IAB; (d) student awareness of the technical and business issues of microfluidic manufacturing through participation in the planning meeting, including a student poster session at the end of Day 1; (e) stronger relationships between CADMIM faculty, leadership, and NSF, including NSF program manager, NSF evaluator, and the other NSF programs that can provide resources to this new I/UCRC; and (f) submission of a full proposal on September 27, 2013 for this I/UCRC based on the results of the planning meeting and the letters of commitment from inaugural IAB members. Although no research was conducted with these funds, new ideas were discussed and exchanged at the planning meeting between all who attended (students, faculty, government, and industry representatives). These ideas could have an impact on the primary fields of the researchers (biomedical engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers) as well as other disciples through collaborations and projects. Once established, the CADMIM center will generate new knowledge. In addition to publications in archival journal and conference proceedings, knowledge dissemination includes an open source "microfluidic function library" containing design specification for microfluidic "circuits" and interchangeable components organized by application and chip manufacturing processes. Scalable prototyping processes also will be disseminated to academia and industry including established companies and entrepreneurs with the goal to dramatically reduce the learning curve and streamline idea-to-product-process. This NSF I/UCRC aims to develop low power, automated, self-contained, mass-produced micro devices capable of multi step by chemical assessments that will transform health care, agriculture, environmental monitoring, and national biothreat detection in the US and around the world.
