The design and characterization of a microcalorimeter to aid drug discovery

This thesis describes the design and characterization of a microcalorimeter used to aid drug discovery. There are four key functional requirements for the device: (1.) 8.4 [mu]J energy resolution, (2.) 20 [mu]L reactant volume (combined total), (3.) 10% experimental variance, and (4.) 100 [mu]K baseline calorimeter drift over a two hour period. The calorimeter utilizes a novel heat sensor. This heat sensor combines thermal expansion and the dynamic response of an oscillating ribbon to transduce the signal from a heat event. A vacuum chamber improved the sensitivity of the sensor by approximately an order of magnitude by significantly reducing the losses due to air friction in the resonant sensor. Additional components such as a position sensor, temperature controlled vacuum chamber, software, and a syringe pump were constructed to complete the calorimeter system. The current calorimeter prototype nearly meets each functional requirement. In addition, the current sensitivity of the instrument is near that of a commercially available calorimeter but uses almost two orders of magnitude less solution. Finally, all of our calorimeter components are designed, built, integrated, and ready to begin more rigorous biological solution experimentation.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• McEuen, Scott Jacob

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ian Hunter.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46060

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/46060