Description:
Computer-automated Microfluidic System for Precise and Targeted Chemical/Drug Delivery and Sampling
NJIT Case No. 18-006
Inventors: Roman Voronov, Quang Long Pham, Anh Tong
Intellectual Property & Development status: Patent protection is pending.
NJIT is currently seeking commercial partners for the further development and commercialization of this opportunity.
Technology Brief:
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering have invented a microfluidic-based novel, cost-effective, automated and precise drug delivery system for real-time monitoring of cellular responses in the culture.
The ability to grow, observe and manipulate complex cultures requires precise control over the cell culture environment. Existing automated microfluidic system of cell culture does not provide targeted fluid delivery or sampling. The invention provides a powerful platform for computer-automated delivery of sample fluids (e.g., drugs, agonist chemicals) and sampling at targeted locations within the culture. This enables a dynamic cell culture environment that is controllable, manipulatable, reproducible with extreme accuracy, and precision. Additionally, the microfluidic ports can be used for non-biological applications, such as printing nozzles.
Advantages
• Cost effective
• Precise and targeted delivery and sampling
• Real-time monitoring
• Computer-automated
• Easy to use
• Scalable technology
• Adaptable to any microscope design
Applications
• Drug development
• Chemical industries
• printing nozzles
Inventors Bio:
Roman Voronov is an Assistant Professor in the department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has received, private foundation grant, New Jersey Health foundation grant and multiple NSF I-Corps seed grants grant for his work in microfluidics.
Prior to his appointment at NJIT, Prof. Voronov was a American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of Prof. Scott Diamond. Prior to joining UPenn, Dr. Voronov held a brief post-doctoral appointment at the University of Oklahoma (OU) studying enhanced oil recovery from porous rock formations (Advanced Energy Consortium). He received his PhD in 2010, MS in 2006, and BS (Summa Cum Laude with a Minor in Physics) in 2003 in Chemical Engineering from OU. His dissertation research involved optimization of culturing conditions for artificial bone tissue using computational fluid dynamics (NSF), and his thesis concentrated on relating slip phenomena to contact angle on superhydrophobic surfaces via molecular dynamics (ONR-NAVY).
His research interests encompass high performance image-based modeling of complex flows with applications ranging from bone tissue engineering, to blood systems biology, to drug delivery. His research group utilizes a combination of supercomputing, cutting edge image processing and microscopy tools, equipment automation and experimental techniques (soft lithography, 3d printing) to develop new ways of controlling cell behavior for culturing artificial tissue and organs. For additional information about the group and for short description of possible projects, please visit http://stem.cell.engineering