Evaporation of Bio-drops: A basis for rapid medical diagnosis for early disease detection and monitoring?

Background:

Early diagnosis and timely treatment are crucial issues in medicine. Various pathologies, such as atherothrombotic vascular disease, cause abnormal blood clotting, and early clotting events may contribute to a pro-thrombotic state which exacerbates disease. The therapeutic options informed by early detection and characterisation of abnormal clotting are greatly enhanced. The rheological properties of plasma and blood cells are influenced markedly by their surrounding environment (physicochemical factors, metabolism and hormones) and blood fluidity is also affected by factors including the hematocrit, plasma viscosity, erythrocyte aggregation tendency, red blood cell deformability, adhesion properties of platelets and leukocytes, as well as changes in the composition and concentration of plasma components . These factors suggest that exploitable biomarkers may be found in the pathological or therapeutic modification of certain haemorheological phenomena. One such phenomenon involves the formation of complex structural patterns during the drying of drops of blood on solid substrates, and, in this project, I propose a highly-promising approach that offers a basis for rapid medical diagnosis for early disease detection and monitoring. It is also important to note that collecting very small blood droplets for drying reduces significantly the cost of collection, storage, processing, transportation, and hazards associated with large samples of blood.

Project:

The project is mainly experimental in nature. It uses existing goniometers, DSA-100 and DSA-30 (as well as Drop Shape Analysis software).

The project objectives are:

• Experimentally study wetting and evaporation of drops on micromachined surfaces.
• Investigate the dynamics of the contact line of drops and the link to deposition and pattern formation.
• To establish direct links between the drying patterns and the physico-chemical and rheological properties of drops (hierarchy of model fluids culminating in the use of whole-serum drops), which influence the drying-driven pattern formation.
• To establish direct links between the drying patterns and the operating conditions such as ambient pressure, temperature and atmosphere.
• To study pattern formation from non-symmetrical drops
• To contribute in the development of physical models to understand the observed patterns

Eligibility:

Minimum entry qualification - an Honours degree at 2:1 or above (or International equivalent) in Chemical or Mechanical Engineering, Physics or Chemistry, possibly supported by an MSc Degree.