2-1-2010

Subgroup meeting Feb. 1^st

· Masoud

Journal club on “ a microfluidic devied to monitor platelet aggregation dynamics in response to strain rate micro-gradients in flowing blood

· Manideep

Doing the first introduction of his project regarding assembling high density cell aggregates. Report the progress of forming the cell aggregates from PEG microwell array as building blocks and preliminary results to assemble in the mineral oil and future plan. Potential problem is how to form shape-specific cell aggregates and how to control the final shape of the assembly.

Suggestions include using wiping-based cell seeding method to improve the cell seeding, and there is need to elucidate the advantages of this approach vs. the hydrogel-based method.

· Matt

Update the progress on the surface-driven gradient generation. Show promising optimization results on the channel geometries, droplet volume on the gradient generation.

Suggestions include using PIV or video-based method to measure the velocity of the flow or use very-long channel to do so. The uniformity of gradient should also be improved by optimizing the shape of the channels.

· Sang Bok

Doing his first presentation on the detection of Troponin I using microfluidic device. Update his progress on the cell culture training, microfluidic fabrication training and propose a new design of the two-layer, two chamber for the microfluidic chip linked by a bridge. He will present a new outline next time.

Suggestions include building a simple-to-use valve between the two chambers.

· Jiankang

Update his progress on the characterization of the chitosan/gelatin composite materials with gradients by FTIR. Good trends of the FTIR have been achieved for the material gradient, for accurate quantification, a proper base-line is required. Further characterizations include using XPS to get quantitative analysis.