Paper-Based Microfluidic Devices: demonstrating a portable microfluidic system that allows quantitative analysis of biomarkers in the tear fluid that is suited for point-of-care settings

The analysis of tear constituents at point-of-care settings has a potential for early diagnosis of ocular disorders such as eye diseases, low-cost screening, and surveillance of at-risk subjects. However, current minimally-invasive rapid tear analysis systems for point-of-care settings have been limited to the assessment of osmolarity or inflammatory markers and they cannot differentiate between dry eye subclassifications.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate a portable microfluidic system that allows quantitative analysis of biomarkers in the tear fluid that is suited for point-of-care settings. The microfluidic system will consist of a capillary tube for sample collection, a reservoir for sample dilution, and a paper-based microfluidic device for electrolyte analysis. The sensing regions will be functionalised with fluorescent crown ethers, o-acetanisidide, and seminaphtorhodafluor that are sensitive to mono- and divalent electrolytes, and their fluorescence emissions will be measured with a smartphone camera readout device.

The successful student will form part of a multidisciplinary team and will be supervised by Dr. Ali K. Yetisen based in the Institute of Translational Medicine (www.itmbirmingham.co.uk) and the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham.