{"id":84604,"date":"2020-04-27T15:26:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T12:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/blog\/microscale-bio-separations\/"},"modified":"2020-04-27T15:26:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T12:26:46","slug":"microscale-bio-separations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/en\/blog\/microscale-bio-separations\/","title":{"rendered":"Microscale Bio Separations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif;\"><b>The slow ones are the fastest: a new microfluidic method for microscale bio separations<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><center><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ueTeXqOazXU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collaborative research between IBM Research and Technion \u2013 Israel Institute of Technology has led to a new method for the separation of particles and molecules from small samples, based on their diffusivity, a molecular property that correlates well with size.\u00a0 The researchers are currently adapting the method for rapid and direct detection of coronavirus from throat swabs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a recent <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1002\/anie.201916699?af=R\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">paper<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Angewandte Chemie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and designated by the journal as a \u201cVery Important Paper,\u201d researchers at IBM Research Europe in Zurich and at the Technion &#8211; Israel Institute of Technology presented a new method and device for separation of particles and biomolecules.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_39384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39384\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"longdesc-return-39384\" class=\"size-large wp-image-39384\" tabindex=\"-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/5-1-1024x596.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"373\" longdesc=\"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il?longdesc=39384&amp;referrer=39380\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-39384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Govind Kaigala, Prof. Moran Bercovici, Vesna Bacheva, Dr. Federico Paratore: Group photo via Zoom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The device makes use of virtual channels, a concept presented by the same team a year ago in a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/116\/21\/10258\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">paper<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, wherein unique flow fields can be generated in a microfluidic chamber using electric field actuation.\u00a0 In their latest findings, the authors used this technology to create <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/action\/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002%2Fanie.201916699&amp;file=anie201916699-s1-SupportingInformation_MovieS2_Bidirectional_flow.mp4\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bidirectional flows<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 alternating stripes carrying fluid in opposite directions.\u00a0 Such a flow field is impossible to create using traditional pumps and valves, and when particles are introduced into this flow they behave in a well-explained yet initially non-intuitive manner: small particles remain stationary, while large particles flow away quickly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe know that all particles in a fluid move in random directions in a process called Brownian motion\u201d said Vesna Bacheva, a PhD candidate in the Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and a co-first author of the paper. \u201cThis is the same mechanism that allows us to smell a small drop of perfume from across the room \u2013 the molecules simply make their way randomly in a process also known as diffusion.\u00a0 However, small particles diffuse much faster than large ones, and when placed in the bidirectional flow they move across the opposing flow streams very quickly. This makes them move very slightly back and forth but overall \u2013 stay in place. Larger molecules or particles diffuse much slower and end up being carried away by the flow.\u201d\u00a0 The team calls their method BFF, meaning \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/action\/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002%2Fanie.201916699&amp;file=anie201916699-s3-SupportingInformation_MovieS1_Separation_gate_electrode.mp4\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bidirectional flow filter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d\u00a0 This separation mechanism was defined by one of the paper <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reviewers as \u201ca<\/span><\/i> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fundamentally significant contribution to the field that only comes along every 10-20 years.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt really is very simple,\u201d added Dr. Federico Paratore, postdoctoral researcher at IBM Research in Zurich, who also co-first authored the paper. \u201cSurprisingly, it hasn\u2019t been done so far, most likely because of technological limitations. Whereas developing the concept certainly took time and iterations, with today\u2019s microfabrication capabilities the final device is rather a simple solid-state device that can be produced on a large scale\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the paper the team demonstrated the separation of antibodies and particles from small molecules and provided the theory and engineering guidelines for separation of wide variety of biomolecules. \u00a0 \u201cThe reason this might be very useful is because the majority of biological assays rely on a reaction between a probe and the target molecule in the sample, followed by removal of the excess probe molecules that did not find their target. This last step is often very involved and is extremely challenging when the volume of the sample is small,\u201d said Prof. Moran Bercovici.\u00a0 \u201cOur method does this very well, provided that the two reacting elements are of sufficiently different size.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team is currently working to adapt the method for rapid detection of the novel Coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Govind Kaigala explained the concept: \u201cFortunately, the coronavirus is fairly large \u2013 about 100 nm in diameter. This is much larger than antibodies or other probes that can be used to bind to it. Using our method we hope to be able to place a patient\u2019s sample into our chip where it will mix with visible probes, and then see only the viruses flowing out while the unbound probes stay behind.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This work was funded by the European Research Council (MetamorphChip) and by the BRIDGE program (project 40B1-0_191549), funded by Innosuisse and the Swiss National Science Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1002\/anie.201916699?af=R\"><b>Click here<\/b><\/a><b> for the paper in <\/b><strong><i>Angewandte Chemie<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The slow ones are the fastest: a new microfluidic method for microscale bio separations Collaborative research between IBM Research and Technion \u2013 Israel Institute of Technology has led to a new method for the separation of particles and molecules from small samples, based on their diffusivity, a molecular property that correlates well with size.\u00a0 The&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/en\/blog\/microscale-bio-separations\/\">Continue Reading<span> Microscale Bio Separations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - 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