Speaker: Taejoon Kong, ECpE Graduate Student
Advisor: Santosh Pandey
Title: Droplet Hopping System to Test Multi-Drug Resistance of Bacterial Cell Populations
Abstract: The current repository of antibiotics is not effective to address the alarming threats of antimicrobial resistance. To rapidly detect antimicrobial resistance in a high-throughput manner, novel bacterial assays are needed that rapidly measure minimum inhibitory concentration of cells. Here we demonstrate an open microfluidic technology, involving motorized actuation of discrete droplets, as a versatile bacterial resistance screening assay. Various droplet operations were remotely combined to modulate the chemical microenvironments of bacterial populations with real-time imaging of their resistance to antibiotics. We present an open microfluidic system to test antimicrobial resistance of Escherichia coli encapsulated in gel-based microspheres. After immobilizing the cell-laden gel microspheres at fixed locations, discrete drug droplets with pre-defined concentrations were brought and mixed with the desired gel microspheres. The system is built using low-cost, off-the-shelf components and requires microliter volumes. Furthermore, up to one hundred droplets can be uniquely handled by the system with the ability to test multiple drug chemicals on multiple bacterial strains in fewer runs compared to those on a petri dish.