Electrical capture of bioparticles in microfluidics.

In this PhD, I will develop a microfluidic high-resolution protein

separation and enrichment technique. By applying an electric field in

a separation channel, a force will be applied on a charged particle

(here a protein), causing it to move in a certain direction. The protein

also experiences an opposing force (a drag force) because it is

dragged along by a stream. The forces acting on this particle will be

balanced, and the particle will remain in a specific steady state

position in the separation channel. When the electric field is nonhomogeneous

throughout the channel, different proteins are captured

at different locations, due to their differences in e.g. size & charges.

This way, several proteins can be separated and enriched. We will

show that by doing this in a microfluidic device with an integrated

controllable microelectrode array, the resolution is significantly

improved. To achieve this, a study of all the processes involved will

be done. Several physical principles will be co-optimized to obtain

the desired behavior. By creating demonstrator devices and by

performing proof of concept tests using fluorescently-tagged proteins,

we will prove our hypothesis. The method will be of value in many

applications. When combined with mass spectrometry, our method

will deliver a lower limit of detection. Our method can also be

employed to study protein interactions or conformation changes, by

monitoring the protein location.