Grants and Contributions:

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Title:

In vitro biomimetic microfluidic models for toxicology studies

Agreement Number:

RGPIN

Agreement Value:

$110,000.00

Agreement Date:

May 10, 2017 -

Organization:

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Location:

British Columbia, CA

Reference Number:

GC-2017-Q1-02265

Agreement Type:

Grant

Report Type:

Grants and Contributions

Additional Information:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Recipient's Legal Name:

Elvira, Katherine (University of Victoria)

Program:

Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Program Purpose:

Lipid bilayers are complex and ubiquitous entities that regulate fundamental processes within cellular environments. In particular, the complexity of lipid bilayers and how they mediate the transport of drugs and molecules into cells is an essential unsolved problem in biology, which has damaging ramifications for drug discovery.
The miniaturisation of chemical and biological systems is a recent, but exciting trend in the natural sciences, providing a host of advantages such as enhanced analytical throughput, reduced sample sizes and heightened control over experimental parameters. Microfluidic platforms in particular, where the technology is designed to manipulate fluids on the microscale, have allowed the development of artificial cell-type systems using volumes and scales that are comparable to real cells.
The aim of my research program is to develop miniaturised bottom-up methods for the formation of biomimetic lipid bilayers that allow the analysis of transport across them and enable the study of their properties. These platforms will allow complete control over each component of a bilayer system, from lipid composition to bilayer size and architecture.
This research program will harness the power of microfluidic devices to answer fundamental questions regarding the mechanism of bilayer transport. To ensure that the application of microfluidic technologies to these problems has a lasting effect on the way that the pharmaceutical industry develops new drugs, from the start, this research program will be informed by the needs of industry through collaborations with domain specialists so that all developments have the potential to be used in pharmaceutical environments. As such, there are a series of modules that need to be developed, such as on-chip biosensors, biomimetic lipid formulations, and microfluidic platforms using materials that allow mass-production.
The multidisciplinary nature of this research program has numerous advantages for the researchers involved. They will be trained in a variety of widely applicable techniques (such as microfluidic device design and fabrication), will become adept at problem solving in a variety of scientific research fields (such as analytical chemistry, biology and engineering) and will benefit from collaborations both with academic experts and industry contacts.