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Engineering in Medicine and Biology [EMB018]
7:00 PM, Wednesday, 14 May
Co-sponsored by the MIT BMES Student Chapter
Disposable microfluidic chip for HIV CD4 monitoring at resource-limited settings
Prof. Utkan Demirci, Harvard Medical School
Our objective is to develop a novel low-cost point-of-care HIV diagnostic tool to bridge emerging engineering nano- and micro-scale solutions to HIV infected patients at resource-limited settings. Our laboratory at the interface of Harvard and MIT specializes in applying these techniques to problems in medicine.
More than 40 million HIV-infected people live in the developing world, yet it is estimated that only one in ten persons infected with HIV has been tested and knows his/her HIV status. The U.S National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicted that the number of HIV-infected individuals in the developing world will rise to 80 million by 2010. Effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV has been available in developed countries for more than a decade. However, worldwide, less than 10% (1.3 million) of the infected individuals currently receive treatment, since most affected persons live in developing countries. Part of the problem associated with existing ART delivery systems are the limitations of conventional methods to diagnose and monitor infected individuals living in rural communities. To increase access to HIV care and to improve treatment outcome requires urgent development of low-cost diagnostic tools for developing countries. The proposed research has potential to impact millions of lives globally and to revolutionize global healthcare. It addresses a significant healthcare and security problem of the world. This work also offers scalable solutions to other major healthcare problems in the world. Disposable low cost diagnostic tools will impact developing world diagnostics by offering point-of-care rapid blood tests and paving the way for bedside diagnostics.
The absolute number of CD4+ T lymphocytes in blood is vital for evaluating HIV-infected patients. It has important prognostic and therapeutic implications, e.g. to initiate treatment and to monitor treatment response. Guidelines recommend that patients be monitored routinely for CD4 counts. In high-income settings, CD4 counts rely on flow cytometry. Available flow cytometers cost $30,000 to $150,000, and a single CD4 count can cost $50 per test, including labor costs and maintenance expenses. While lower prices are available in some resource-limited countries, the cost remains unaffordable for many patients, and the test is not performed at the point-of-care and it must be performed at a central laboratory. The World Health Organization has stated that there is an urgent need for a handheld, point-of-care, reliable, low-cost CD4 counting device for use in resource-scarce regions.
We propose to use nano- and micro-scale techniques to develop a microfluidic device that achieves CD4 cell capture and counting. We will validate this device with HIV-infected subjects. Our target is a point-of-care, low-cost (<$1), disposable, microfluidic device that uses a fingerstick blood sample (<10 µl) and rapidly produces a CD4 count (<5 minutes). We employ on-chip sample handling to accelerate CD4 counting in resource-limited settings.
Utkan Demirci received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1999 as a James B. Angell Scholar (Summa Cum Laude) from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his M.S. degree in 2001 in Electrical Engineering, M.S. degree in Management Science and Engineering in 2005 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2005 all from Stanford University. Dr. Demirci worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School as a research fellow for his postdoctoral training. He was selected to TR-35 in 2006 as one of the world’s top 35 young innovators under the age of 35 by the Technology Review. He is one of the few recipients of the prestigious Full Presidential Fellowship given by the Turkish Ministry of Education. He is a corecipient of the 2002 Outstanding Paper Award of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society. He won the Stanford University Entrepreneur’s Challenge Competition in 2004 and Global Start-up Competition in Singapore in 2004. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society. He is a member of the IEEE. His research interests involve biological applications of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) and acoustics, especially: microfluidics for low cost CD4 counts for HIV in resource-limited-settings for global health problems; acoustic picoliter droplets for cell-by-cell 3D tissue generation, and semiconductor applications; capacitive micromachined ultrasonic arrays (CMUTS) for medical imaging applications. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School.
The chapter meeting is scheduled for 7:00 PM, Wednesday, May 14th, at MIT Building 66, Room 66-110, Cambridge, MA. Refreshments will be served prior to the event at 6:30 PM, with the lecture starting at 7:00 PM. For location of Building 66 and directions to the campus please consult http://whereis.mit.edu. The meeting is co-sponsored by the Student Chapter of the MIT Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). For more information contact Brian Tracey at btracey@neurometrix.com.
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