Simulation model of a microfluidic point of care biosensor for electrical enumeration of blood cells

Point of care microfluidic devices provide many opportunities for improving the diagnosis of a number of illnesses. They can provide a speedy, quantitative assay in the form of an easy to use portable platform. By using Finite Element Analysis software to model and simulate these microfluidic devices, we can further optimize and improve on the design of such devices. In this work we will use such software in order to model an electrical counting chamber that would be implemented in such a device. This chamber utilizes the coulter counting principle to measure the change in impedance caused when a bead or a cell passes over a series of electrodes. By utilizing the signals to count the number of cells coming into and out of a capture chamber that targets a specific antigen, we can obtain a quantitative measure of how many cells or beads were expressing the target antigen and use this for a diagnosis. First the simulation was tuned to be able to produce the characteristic bipolar pulse when a cell passed over the electrodes. Then by varying elements such as bead size, input voltage, bead composition and electrode placement and recording the results we can use this model to help further refine and optimize this device by giving us a quantitative model that will allow us to better understand how changing such variables will alter the signal received from the device and thus allow us a better understanding of the best way to get a clearer signal.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Bioengineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Jankelow, Aaron Mitchell

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bashir, Rashid

• Finite Element Analysis, Sepsis, microfluidics, COMSOL, coulter counter

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Aaron Jankelow

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101193

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101193