Laboratory Testing & Automation 2019

Computer vision (CV) has seen rapid growth in many industries, including the life sciences with high-content cell imaging and phenotypic assays.  However, many biomolecular and cellular assays today typically rely on conventional readouts like spectrophotometry, fluorimetry, and luminescence. Bioelectronica is developing an integrated sensing and fluid-actuation platform (“BE-Platform”) that combines CV, a lensless imager, chemical reagents,  and data science approaches to provide researchers and collaborators with a versatile modern tool for biomolecular and cell-based assays in a single instrument.

The BE-platform detects the size, darkness, morphology, and other multi-dimensional features of objects at 5-50 micron length scales.  The generality of this approach enables the BE-platform to perform diverse assays and workflows that traditionally require separate analytical tools. The vision is to provide researchers with a cloud-connected technology that integrates data across multiple assays and multiple sites, allowing new forms of workflow automation. 

This talk will present some of the current capabilities of the BE-platform and their early-stage applications:

1. Enumeration for cell and bead counting.
2. Size/morphology for measuring bead-mediated chemistries, including non-enzymatic reagents used to detect biomarkers in cell-growth media
3. Darkness of beads to a) measure enzyme-linked darkening assays (ELDA), (b) Cell surface markers, and (c) Live/Dead Cell Assays. 

Learning Objectives: 

1. Understand how computer vision (CV) can be applied to molecular and cellular assays.
2. Consider examples of how users may utilize the BE-platform for their own research and application purposes. 

In this seminar, Dr Elvira will talk about the use of droplet microfluidic technologies for drug discovery. Initially, she will discuss the fundamental concepts of droplet microfluidic technologies, how they work, and how droplets function in terms stability and reproducibility. Dr Elvira will then use specific examples from her own research to highlight how these platforms can be used in the context of drug discovery, such as to enable the rapid and reproducible determination of distribution coefficients, to quantify lipid digestion kinetics, and for the formation of droplet interface bilayers, which are very simple artificial cells.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Explain the fundamental characteristics of droplet microfluidic technologies 
2. Describe some of the types of applications of microfluidic platforms for drug discovery

The ultimate limits of diagnostics in biology are the “quantum” units that convey information, e.g. single nucleic acids, proteins, and cells. Microfluidics has emerged as a powerful tool to compartmentalize single cells and molecules into sub-nanoliter droplets as individual bioreactors to enable sensitive detection and analysis down to this quantum limit. However, the current systems for quantum diagnostics have not been widely adopted, partly due to the requirement of specialized instruments and microfluidic chips to generate uniform droplets and perform adequate manipulations.  I will discuss the platforms we are developing to fractionate volumes in simplified, instrument-free ways using 3D-shaped microparticles. Each “lab-on-a-particle” can be analyzed using widely available flow cytometers. These new lab-on-a-particle reagents eliminate the need for specialized new equipment for microfluidic compartmentalization and readout and promise to democratize single-molecule and single-cell technologies.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Attendee will become familiar with the current approaches and challenges to measure single cells and single molecules and the advantages of fluid compartmentalization.
2. Attendee will be introduced to the concept of lab-on-a-particle technology to perform assays and unique physical underpinnings of these systems.