Cell and Particle Behavior in Microfluidic Mixers: Applications in Cell Signaling Dynamics
Author(s)
Hirsch, Alison
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Abstract
Fluid mixing is common in large-scale chemical processes. Recently, many biological or chemical processes are
carried out in microfluidic systems, where mixing of solutes is predominantly a diffusion process due to the laminar
nature of the flow at the micro scale. Different mixing strategies have been employed to effectively decrease the
characteristic length for diffusion. However, particle mixing behavior in fluid is still not well understood. To assess the
critical factors behind fluid-particle behavior at Reynolds numbers where inertial and viscous forces both play a role,
we experimentally studied three dimensional particle distributions as a function of flow velocity, fluid and particle
properties, and mixer geometries, using a fast microscopy technique we developed. Computational Fluid Dynamics
was also used to understand the particle flow characteristics as influenced by relevant forces. With this knowledge,
efficient unit operations in multiphase systems (e.g. mixing and separation) can be designed, especially in
microfluidic technologies for many biological and medical applications that handle cells and beads. In particular, for
our study in the signaling dynamics in T cell activation for adoptive-transfer cancer immune therapy. The microchip in
this case provides a platform for obtaining well-controlled data points in parallel, superior to bench-top assay
performances.
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Date
2009-10-14
Extent
25:40 minutes
Resource Type
Moving Image
Resource Subtype
Lecture