Microfluidic biosensors for point of care applications using electrical impedance analysis and portable lensless wide-field microscopy imaging

Diagnosis and treatment monitoring near patient or point of care (POC) is an essential need. POC tests can be robust, accurate, cost effective, user friendly, specific, deliverable and sensitive according to current needs. POC tests can result faster diagnosis and optimize treatment follow up, they are also crucial for infectious diseases. HIV/AIDS is a global issue with 36 Million infected person. Most of them are living in developing countries with limited health care resources, there is an urgent need for POC diagnosis and treatment monitoring of HIV/AIDS. In this thesis first a flexible polymer based microfluidic biosensor using electrical impedance detection for POC HIV-1 virus load diagnosis is developed, second, a microfluidic biosensor and POC diagnosis system using lensless wide-field microscopy imaging for POC CD4+T cell counting is developed for HIV/AIDS monitoring and finally a biopreservation method for increasing the shelf life of POC CD4+T cell counting biosensor at room temperature is engineered. POC HIV virus load diagnosis biosensor using electrical impedance analysis is able to diagnosis 106 - 108 copies/mL of HIV-1 virus load, it is practical and cost effective, and its electrical model is analyzed in detail. POC CD4+T cell count system is able to specifically capture and automatically count CD4+T cells in whole blood with the developed novel cell detection and counting algorithm. A lensless wide-field microscope system integrated with a microfluidic cell capturing chip is developed and cell images to be counted are obtained using this microscope. POC CD4+T cell count biosensor is engineered to increase its shelf life. Biopreservation of multilayer immuno-functionalized surfaces inside a microfluidic chip has been developed using trehalose as a biopreservation agent. That biopreserved biosensors are stored in room temperature and used for tests up two 6 months. Their cell capture accuracy, specificity and precision are almost over 90% and sensitivity is average.