Microfluidics for Life Science in Two Parts

In this talk, Dr Inglis will cover two recent areas of work: i) droplets for chemical signals, and ii) deterministic lateral displacement (the focus of his sabbatical with Dr Timm Krüger at the University of Edinburgh).
i) The field of lab-on-a-chip is bringing many diagnostics to the patient, but this is not possible for all analyses. Sometimes, we will need to bring the sample to the machine. But transporting liquid samples even over millimetres causes signal dispersion that wipes out the temporal information content. Two phase flows using droplets can solve this problem. We have leveraged microfabrication and the water-oil Laplace pressure to create devices that can deliver and sample dynamic chemical signals.
ii) DLD is a method for particle separation that uses a periodic array of obstacles. The behaviour of particles can be modelled and studied using a unit cell with periodic boundary conditions. But when real-life devices are made we must design real boundaries that are not infinitely periodic. Here I will present a new approach to creating pseudo-periodic boundaries for DLD devices. The new boundaries have much better performance than anything previously described and should enable narrower, shorter, and higher throughput separation devices.