Contact us

Probe Design

Microfluidics

System Integration

Clinical Testing

Home

THE PROJECT

Urinary tract infection (UTI)is the most common urological disease in the United States and is a major cause of patient morbidity and health-care expenditure. This Bioengineering Research Partnership proposal involves development and testing of a system for the genotypic detection and species-specific identification of uropathogens within a time frame (5-10 minutes from sample collection to readout) that would enable point-of-care diagnosis and treatment. The focus of this proposal is to develop a self-contained microbial pathogen detection device and to examine its performance using clinical urine samples. Research at UCLA has provided two key technological advances that make development of a uropathogen sensor feasible. The first is microfluidics for sample processing. The second is an electrochemical microsensor which allows ultrasensitive detection of specific DNA-RNA or DNA-DNA hybridization events, without the need for target amplification. This project has been in development for over a year involving a multidisciplinary effort including leaders in the fields of microfluidics and microsensor technology (Chih-Ming Ho, Vincent Gau, and Warren Grundfest), molecular microbiology (David Haake, Edward McCabe, and David Bruckner),pediatric urology (Bernard Churchill and Edward McCabe) and biomathematics (Elliot Landaw).

Specific Aim 1 describes how microfluidics studies will be applied to development of a crossflow filter for uropathogen concentration, micromixing for processing of uropathogen nucleic acids, and washing of the sensor surface. Specific Aim 2 involves fabrication of the microsensor array, development of a streptavidin self-assembled monolayer, and testing of oligonucleotide probes for electrochemical detection of uropathogen rRNA and mRNA on the microsensor surface. Specific Aim 3 will involve integration of the microfluidics and sensor components and testing of its analytic validity on simulated and actual urine specimens. Specific Aim 4 will involve fabrication of sufficient numbers of the device to test the association between urosensor results and clinical correlates of urinary tract infection.

To contact the Webmaster regarding this site email to: mmoeck@mednet.ucla.edu

  Mission Statement Partnership Urosensor Restricted Site Project Links