Difference between revisions of "Team:BostonU HW/Description"

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<title>Bronze Medal</title>
  
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<h1>Description</h1>
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background-image: url("https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/9/94/LARGE_background_MARS.png");
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.text_section{
  
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<p>Tell us about your project, describe what moves you and why this is something important for your team.</p>
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<h5>What should this page contain?</h5>
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<ul>
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<li> A clear and concise description of your project.</li>
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<li>A detailed explanation of why your team chose to work on this particular project.</li>
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<li>References and sources to document your research.</li>
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<li>Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.</li>
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<div class="col-md-9" style="color:#eef1f5; font-size:80px; font-family:Arial,Gadget,sans-serif; margin-top:-2.5%;">
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Project<br><br><br><br>Description
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<h2>Overview and Introduction</h2>
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Microfluidics is a scientific field that exists at the intersection of the fields of engineering, physics, chemistry and biotechnology. It deals with the manipulation of microlitre volumes of liquids which are processed on devices called microfluidic chips. As a result, microfluidics allows complex protocols and procedures to be performed on chips.
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<br>
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<br>
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There are a variety of different types of microfluidic chips in existence. For example, digital, paper and centrifugal microfluidic chips are all in use today. MARS focuses on continuous flow microfluidics fabricated from polycarbonate and PDMS.
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</div>
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</div>
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<h2>Problem Statement</h2>
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<div class="text_section" style="margin-bottom:3%;">
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If a synthetic biologist would like to use microfluidics in their lab, they would follow the traditional design and manufacture workflow. This consists of three general stages divided into:<br><br>
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<b><ol>
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<li>Design</li>
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<li>Manufacture</li>
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<li>Implementation</li>
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</ol></b> <br>
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Designing, manufacturing and using a microfluidic device  requires significant knowledge investment in topics such as the basics of fluid dynamics and specialised software such Adobe Illustrator. If a synthetic biologist does not want to design their own chip, they can search through published literature. However, these devices are often highly specialized and not useful for the average synbio researcher. After either designing their own chip, or selecting a published microfluidic, they would begin the time consuming process of designing and modeling their chip  using Comsol. Once the design is finalized, they can move on to the manufacturing stage of the workflow. Most microfluidic fabrications methods, such as soft lithography, require a high initial startup cost, technical agility, time investment and more educational investment to learn how to correctly manufacture the chips.
 +
<br>
 +
<br>
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After manufacturing their device the synthetic biologist can then move onto implementation and testing. However, there are many difficulties that may arise when testing a device. For example, certain chips may require some external apparatus, such as off-chip metering or electronic components. These can vary from design to design, adding additional costs and time investment in learn how to use them.
 +
<br>
 +
<br>
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Even after investing time and money into this microfluidics workflow, success is not guaranteed. The process may need to be repeated dozens of times to get a fully functional microfluidic chip.
 +
<br>
 +
<br>
 +
These difficulties with replicating and testing microfluidic devices was experienced first-hand by the BostonU HW Team. While replicating chips from journal articles, similarly to our synthetic biologist, we noted three repeated issues: <br><br>
 +
<ol><b>
 +
<li>Lack of thorough documentation of experimental procedures</li>
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<li>High level of design specificity and a lack accessibility of design files</li>
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<li>Lack of standard evaluation system to grade devices against</li>
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</b></ol><br>
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As a result, the final chip manufactured cannot be run correctly due to lack of protocol documentation. Additionally, it is not possible to use a quantitative system of evaluation to ensure the device is working as intended. We have classified these limitations as barriers in the “implementation” stage of the microfluidics workflow.
 +
<h2>Our Project</h2>
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The <a href="http://cidarlab.org/">CIDAR Lab</a> at Boston University has tackled many of these design and manufacture shortcomings with an easy to use software workflow, including last year's iGEM Hardware project <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:BostonU_HW">Neptune</a>, and a low-cost rapid prototyping manufacturing system <a href ="http://cidarlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Synberc_MakerFluidics_Poster_Silva.pdf">Makerfluidics</a>. However, this system does not address the barriers we had identified under “Implementation” which limits the accessibility of microfluidics to everyday synthetic biology labs.
 +
<br>
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<br>
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<b>This year’s iGEM Team, decided to focus on removing these barriers in the implementation stage of the workflow which led to the creation of our project MARS (Microfluidic Applications for Research in Synbio).</b>
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<br>
 +
<br>
 +
MARS aims to increase the accessibility and relevance of microfluidics to synthetic biology through three defined goals: <br><br>
 +
<b><ol>
 +
<li>Increase the ease of access of microfluidics to synbiologists</li>
 +
<li>Design chips relevant for day to day use in synthetic biology</li>
 +
<li>Create a standardized method of evaluating chip functionality</li>
 +
</ol></b> <br>
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These goals have been built on and expanded to create the three branches of MARS which are:
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<br><br>
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<ol>
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<li>
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<a href="https://2017.igem.org/Team:BostonU_HW/IntrouF">
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<button class="btn btn-round btn-danger" style="margin:0% !important;">Microfluidics 101</button>
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</a>
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</li>
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<br>
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<li>
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<a href="https://2017.igem.org/Team:BostonU_HW/Demonstrate">
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<button class="btn btn-round btn-danger" style="margin:0% !important;">The MARS Repository</button>
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</a>
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</li>
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<br>
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<li>
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<a href="https://2017.igem.org/Team:BostonU_HW/Model">
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<button class="btn btn-round btn-danger" style="margin:0% !important;">Fluid Functionality</button>
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</a>
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<br>
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<h5>Advice on writing your Project Description</h5>
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Explore our Wiki to understand more about each of these branches!
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</div>
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<p>
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</div>
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We encourage you to put up a lot of information and content on your wiki, but we also encourage you to include summaries as much as possible. If you think of the sections in your project description as the sections in a publication, you should try to be consist, accurate and unambiguous in your achievements.
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Judges like to read your wiki and know exactly what you have achieved. This is how you should think about these sections; from the point of view of the judge evaluating you at the end of the year.
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      <h3>CONTACT US</h3>
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    <div style="text-align:center;">
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      <a href="mailto:igembuhw@gmail.com">
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      <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/7/74/MARS_WHITEEmail.png" style="height:60px; margin-top:20px;">
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      </a>
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        <a href="https://www.instagram.com/buigemhardware/?hl=en">
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        <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/9/93/MARS_Final_insta.png" style="height:60px; margin-top:20px;">
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      </a>
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          <a href="https://twitter.com/igemhwbu">
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          <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/b/b6/MARS_Twitter_White.png" style="height:60px; margin-top:20px;">
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        <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/0/0e/MARS_SponsorsFinal.png" style="width:100%; margin-top:30px;" usemap="#image-map">
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<h5>References</h5>
 
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<p>iGEM teams are encouraged to record references you use during the course of your research. They should be posted somewhere on your wiki so that judges and other visitors can see how you thought about your project and what works inspired you.</p>
 
  
 
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<h5>Inspiration</h5>
 
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<p>See how other teams have described and presented their projects: </p>
 
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<ul>
 
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<li><a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Imperial_College/Description">2016 Imperial College</a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Wageningen_UR/Description">2016 Wageningen UR</a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:UC_Davis/Project_Overview"> 2014 UC Davis</a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:SYSU-Software/Overview">2014 SYSU Software</a></li>
 
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Revision as of 23:45, 31 October 2017

BostonU_HW

Bronze Medal
Project



Description

Overview and Introduction

Microfluidics is a scientific field that exists at the intersection of the fields of engineering, physics, chemistry and biotechnology. It deals with the manipulation of microlitre volumes of liquids which are processed on devices called microfluidic chips. As a result, microfluidics allows complex protocols and procedures to be performed on chips.

There are a variety of different types of microfluidic chips in existence. For example, digital, paper and centrifugal microfluidic chips are all in use today. MARS focuses on continuous flow microfluidics fabricated from polycarbonate and PDMS.

Problem Statement

If a synthetic biologist would like to use microfluidics in their lab, they would follow the traditional design and manufacture workflow. This consists of three general stages divided into:

  1. Design
  2. Manufacture
  3. Implementation
Designing, manufacturing and using a microfluidic device requires significant knowledge investment in topics such as the basics of fluid dynamics and specialised software such Adobe Illustrator. If a synthetic biologist does not want to design their own chip, they can search through published literature. However, these devices are often highly specialized and not useful for the average synbio researcher. After either designing their own chip, or selecting a published microfluidic, they would begin the time consuming process of designing and modeling their chip using Comsol. Once the design is finalized, they can move on to the manufacturing stage of the workflow. Most microfluidic fabrications methods, such as soft lithography, require a high initial startup cost, technical agility, time investment and more educational investment to learn how to correctly manufacture the chips.

After manufacturing their device the synthetic biologist can then move onto implementation and testing. However, there are many difficulties that may arise when testing a device. For example, certain chips may require some external apparatus, such as off-chip metering or electronic components. These can vary from design to design, adding additional costs and time investment in learn how to use them.

Even after investing time and money into this microfluidics workflow, success is not guaranteed. The process may need to be repeated dozens of times to get a fully functional microfluidic chip.

These difficulties with replicating and testing microfluidic devices was experienced first-hand by the BostonU HW Team. While replicating chips from journal articles, similarly to our synthetic biologist, we noted three repeated issues:

  1. Lack of thorough documentation of experimental procedures
  2. High level of design specificity and a lack accessibility of design files
  3. Lack of standard evaluation system to grade devices against

As a result, the final chip manufactured cannot be run correctly due to lack of protocol documentation. Additionally, it is not possible to use a quantitative system of evaluation to ensure the device is working as intended. We have classified these limitations as barriers in the “implementation” stage of the microfluidics workflow.

Our Project

The CIDAR Lab at Boston University has tackled many of these design and manufacture shortcomings with an easy to use software workflow, including last year's iGEM Hardware project Neptune, and a low-cost rapid prototyping manufacturing system Makerfluidics. However, this system does not address the barriers we had identified under “Implementation” which limits the accessibility of microfluidics to everyday synthetic biology labs.

This year’s iGEM Team, decided to focus on removing these barriers in the implementation stage of the workflow which led to the creation of our project MARS (Microfluidic Applications for Research in Synbio).

MARS aims to increase the accessibility and relevance of microfluidics to synthetic biology through three defined goals:

  1. Increase the ease of access of microfluidics to synbiologists
  2. Design chips relevant for day to day use in synthetic biology
  3. Create a standardized method of evaluating chip functionality
These goals have been built on and expanded to create the three branches of MARS which are:




Explore our Wiki to understand more about each of these branches!