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Portable Pathogen Diagnostics Using Microfluidic Cartridges Made from Continuous Liquid Interface Production Additive
Jacob Berger1,2, Mehmet Y Aydin3, Robert Stavins3
1Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States.
Analytical Chemistry
|July 12, 2021
Summary
Additive manufacturing using CLIP technology enables rapid production of microfluidic diagnostic cartridges. This innovation supports sensitive pathogen detection for point-of-care infectious disease diagnostics.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Additive Manufacturing
- Microfluidics
Background:
- Microfluidic devices offer significant potential for biomedical diagnostics, but manufacturing limitations hinder widespread adoption.
- Infectious disease outbreaks highlight the need for simple, sensitive, and point-of-care diagnostic tests.
- Conventional microfluidic device manufacturing methods face challenges in scalability and cost-effectiveness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and characterize additive manufacturing (AM) cartridges using Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) for microfluidic diagnostics.
- To investigate the process capabilities and material compatibility of CLIP for fabricating microfluidic devices.
- To validate the use of CLIP-based microfluidic cartridges for pathogen detection.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of microfluidic cartridges using CLIP, a form of additive manufacturing.
- Characterization of microfluidic channel dimensions and repeatability produced by CLIP.
- Development and implementation of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for *E. coli* detection on the cartridges.
Main Results:
- CLIP technology accurately produced microfluidic channels as small as 400 μm, with routine production of 100 μm channels at high repeatability.
- A LAMP assay demonstrated a limit of detection of 50 cfu/μL for *E. coli* in whole blood directly on the CLIP-fabricated cartridges.
- The study validated CLIP processes and materials for pathogen detection in microfluidic diagnostic devices.
Conclusions:
- Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) is a viable additive manufacturing method for producing microfluidic diagnostic cartridges.
- CLIP-based microfluidic devices enable sensitive and repeatable pathogen detection, suitable for point-of-care applications.
- This portable diagnostic platform technology can be scaled for current and future infectious disease diagnostics and pandemic preparedness.
