Implementing a novel infectious disease diagnosis assay to a microfluidic device

Infectious diseases ranging from avian influenza to Ebola virus infection are among the most serious health emergencies in Canada and globally. Current diagnosis methods such as cell culture, ELISA and PCR suffer from inaccuracy, high-cost and lengthy procedures. Therefore, there has been a growing trend to develop new point-of-care diagnostic tools and microfluidic devices are considered as an important enabling technology owing to its advantages in miniaturization, precise fluidic control, low-cost and high-throughput. The proposed project will implement a novel antibody-based infectious disease diagnosis assay to a microfluidic device to improve the assay performance. The postdoc will perform the research in both the academic lab with expertise in microfluidics-based biological/biomedical applications and with the industry partner that is extending its successful machine learning technology to biomedical applications. Such research will facilitate the industry partner’s new business development in biotechnology and the training will uniquely prepare the postdoc for industry-driving R&D.

Faculty Supervisor:

Francis Lin

Student:

Jiandong Wu

Partner:

Sightline Innovation Inc

Discipline:

Physics / Astronomy

Sector:

Nanotechnologies

University:

University of Manitoba