Integrated Microfluidic Systems for the Detection of Cancer, Infectious and Genetic Diseases

• Main Authors: Kang-YiLien, 連剛逸
• Other Authors: Gwo-Bin Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84347823649834695757

博士 === 國立成功大學 === 奈米科技暨微系統工程研究所 === 98 === Rapid and accurate diagnosis of various diseases has been of a great need for biomedical applications. Due to advances in preventive medicine and clinical diagnosis, tools for the rapid analysis of genetic mutation associated with hereditary diseases and infectious diseases have attracted significant interests in recent years. The entire diagnostic process usually involves several critical steps such as sample pre-treatment, genetic identification and data analysis. The sample pre-treatment processes such as extraction and purification of the target nucleic acids prior to genetic analysis are essential in molecular diagnostics. The genetic identification process may require delicate and complicated apparatus for nucleic acid amplification, sequencing and detection. Traditionally, pre-treatment of clinical biological samples (e.g. the extraction of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA) and target cells isolation) and the analysis of genetic genes associated with genetic/infectious diseases are typically a lengthy and costly process. These labor-intensive and time-consuming processes usually result in a high-cost per diagnosis and may hinder their practical applications. As well, the accuracy of the diagnosis may be affected owing to potential contamination from manual processing. Alternatively, due to significant advances in micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) and microfluidic technology, there are numerous miniature systems employed in biomedical applications, especially for the rapid diagnosis of genetic/infectious diseases. A number of advantages including automation, compactness, disposability, portability, lower cost, less diagnosis time, lower consumption of samples and reagents, and lower power consumption can be realized by using these microfluidic-based platforms. As a result, microfluidic-based systems are becoming promising platforms for genetic analysis, molecular biology and for the rapid detection of diseases. Consequently, the current study proposes four new microfluidic-based platforms capable of pre-treatment of clinical bio-samples, identification of genetic genes and diagnosis of associated diseases. The combination of magnetic beads and microfluidic technology enables the realization of these micro-systems. For the first system, human white blood cells (HWBCs) can be purified and isolated from the clinical whole blood, followed by extracting the genomic DNA (gDNA) with the incorporation of surface-modified magnetic beads. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping can be then identified by using the built nucleic acid amplification module. In the second system, the microfluidic system integrated with three functional devices including a sample purification module for gDNA extraction from saliva samples, a self-compensated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) module for the detection of genetic mutation and an external optical detection module for end-point analysis of a gene assay has been used for the detection of ?-thalassemia-1 deletion. The third microfluidic system is also proposed for the rapid isolation and detection of target cancer cells in an automatic manner. A new 3-dimensional (3D) microfluidic system has been developed to solve the fundamental and challenging problems in handling the clinical bio-samples with relatively large volume in the microfluidic system, especially to identify the rare cancer cells such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in bodily fluids during the early stage. For the fourth micro system, a suction-based microfluidic system for rapid detection and optical analysis of influenza viral particles has been demonstrated. As a whole, the developed systems may provide promising point-of-care platforms for rapid diagnosis of diseases.