This PFI: AIR Technology Translation project focuses on translating the concept of microfluidic design automation software for laboratory-on-a-chips (LoCs) to reduce the cost of designing new LoCs for applications such as medical diagnostics, drug discovery, biothreat detection, and environmental monitoring, and to improve the rate of progress in the biological and biomedical sciences. Computer Aided Design (CAD) software for LoCs is important because many industrial practitioners who desire highly customized LoCs lack the means to obtain them at a low cost and within a reasonable timeframe. Meanwhile current design methodologies cannot keep pace with current Moore's Law-rates of growth in the number of integrated microfluidic components and ever-increasing device complexity. This project will result in a prototype CAD software platform for LoCs, which offers the following unique features: a 2D sketch-based interface, a microfluidic component library, integrated fluid modeling to guide 3D volumization of components and fluid channels, automatic design rule checking, assistance with choosing fabrication technologies and materials, and 3D rendering capabilities. These features provide the key advantage of a platform tailored to meet the needs of users who are trained to design biological experiments, as opposed to engineers and technologists, and to provide improvements in usability and user productivity compared to the leading competing general-purpose CAD tools and finite element analysis software presently employed in this market space.
This project addresses the following technology gap as it translates from research discovery toward commercial application. Current design practice for microfluidic laboratories-on-a-chip (LoCs) requires the user to create a design using complex engineering CAD software, then iterate through additional flow simulation software to assess correctness of the design. In contrast, this project proposes a new design paradigm wherein fluid modeling algorithms drive an informed design process specific to microfluidic technologies in general, and LoCs in particular. This is considerably more appealing to potential users than iteratively applying an ad-hoc design process and then using formal methods exclusively to establish the (in)correctness of each resulting design. This project will tightly integrate CAD software that employs a sketch-based interface, in-line with current design practices today, with fluid modeling algorithms that can iteratively assist the user in terms of refining the sketch and semi-automatically rendering a 3D image of the working device, which accounts for component and channel geometries, etc. It will also provide the option to employ design automation algorithms to accelerate the design process, automatic design rule checking, and will help guide the user to select appropriate fabrication technologies and materials in line with cost, time-to-market, and product performance objectives.
Personnel involved in this project, one Postdoctoral researcher and one PhD student, will receive innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology translation experiences through training and mentorship on business-related topics provided by project Co-PI Gunnar Hurtig, and a "Technology Transfer Roadshow" spearheaded by UCR's Technology Transfer Office, which are expected to culminate in company formation. The project engages Lattice Automation, Inc., PharmaSeq, and Potomac Affinity Proteins, LLC, who will permit the project team to use the microfluidic CAD software to reproduce existing products, and possibly to design new products, which can provide initial validation of the CAD software prototype in this technology translation effort from research discovery toward commercial reality.
