I-Corps: High-fidelity Simulation Software for Microfluidics

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

Microfluidic systems are increasingly being used in diagnostics and therapeutics of several human diseases. They hold tremendous promise for low-cost, point-of-care diagnosis of various types of cancer and HIV, for instance. Key to the success of such systems is the ability to precisely control and manipulate individual blood cells. While their design so far is largely based on heuristics and exhaustive lab testing, new predictive computer simulation tools are emerging. Current commercial software packages provide excellent simulation tools to analyze flow of simple (Newtonian) fluids through any given microfluidic device. However, in the case of flows involving deformable particles such as cells, bubbles or capsules, their scope is extremely limited. Based on recent advances in numerical algorithms, this project will develop novel simulation technology capable of simulating realistic blood cell concentrations, enabling rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices. Thereby, this project has the potential to drive further innovations in low-cost diagnostic tools and patient-specific therapeutic strategies. The main difficulty with particulate flow simulations lies in the fact that the hydrodynamic interactions are long-range, thereby, leading to high computational expense. Furthermore, the time-stepping schemes suffer from loss of accuracy and stability due to nearly touching surfaces that vary in time as the particles flow. The solvers developed by this I-Corps team are already capable of (i) computing the interactions between cells and channels in linear time via the use of fast N-body algorithms, (ii) delivering results with high-fidelity via the use of spectrally-accurate numerical methods and (iii) performing long-time simulations via the use of stiffness-overcoming time-marching schemes. The primary goal of this project is to build a simulation suite that works for any given chip geometry, boundary conditions and cellular concentrations.