Integration of Droplet Microfluidics with a Nanopore Sensor

• Main Author: Osman, Enas
• Other Authors: Godin, Michel
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa 2018
• Subjects: Droplet Microfluidics; Nanopore Sensor
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/38570; http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-22823

The integration of droplet microfluidics devices with nanopore sensors offers a powerful and miniaturized sensing platform. Such devices can utilize the pre-processing capabilities of microfluidics in conjunction with single molecule sensing offered by nanopores. Microfluidics devices utilizing segmented flow (droplets) allow the compartmentalization of chemical and biological reagents in droplets reducing the processing time and associated cost, which is advantageous to biomolecular applications. Droplet microfluidics have been used in diagnostics and therapeutic applications such as cell and biomarker detection, gene amplification, and drug delivery. Nanopore sensors are currently used in investigating DNA and gene detection, protein-protein interactions, protein folding, and enzymatic kinetic reactions. This thesis proposes a design and outlines a methodology to integrate nanopore sensors within a droplet microfluidic device. The chapters are organized in highlighting three main objectives. The first objective is creating the segmented flow of oil-KCl droplets using a T-junction microfluidic design. The second objective is measuring the conductance of the segmented flow prior to the nanopore integration by using two side channel-AgCl electrodes. Subsequently, the third objective is integrating the droplet microfluidic device with a silicon nitride chip for nanopore fabrication. The nanopore is then created using controlled dielectric breakdown (CBD) method for DNA detection within droplets. The results show the feasibility of sensing individual DNA molecules within droplets using a nanopore sensor. The implemented approach expands upon nanopore applications to detect different samples simultaneously, fast food-borne pathogens and tumor discrimination in cancer biology. We anticipate that this integration is the future of nanopore sensors.