Acoustically-driven buffer switching for microparticles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12559771-B2
Application number	US-201916359626-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 20, 2019
Priority date	Mar 20, 2018
Publication date	Feb 24, 2026
Grant date	Feb 24, 2026

Abstract

A system for sequential exposure of particles to different fluid streams includes an acoustic actuator device for acoustically driving one or more substrates and a microchannel device of the one or more substrates that receive particles in a first flowing fluid, moves the particles to a second flowing fluid, then moves the particles out of the second flowing fluid using acoustic radiation generated by the acoustic actuator device. The system can control residence times in the streams. According to one use, the first flowing fluid is a cell buffer and the second flowing media is an electroporation buffer. An electroporation system is placed in or downstream of the acoustic actuator device. However, in other uses, the second flowing media might be a wash buffer.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for sequential exposure of particles to different fluid streams, comprising:
flowing a first fluid and a second fluid through a microchannel device of one or more substrates; acoustically moving particles in the first fluid to the second fluid, while the first and second fluids flow parallel to one another with an acoustic transducer of the microchannel device; electroporating the particles in the microchannel device after the particles have been moved into the second fluid with electroporation electrodes downstream of the acoustic transducer; and thereafter moving the particles out of the second fluid.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising controlling residence times of the particles in the second fluid.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first fluid and the second fluid are merged in a laminar flow regime.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first fluid is a cell buffer and the second fluid is an electroporation buffer.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the particles are moved out of the second fluid back into the first fluid.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the particles are moved out of the second fluid and into a third fluid.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the particles are acoustically moved out of the second fluid by a second acoustic transducer downstream of the electroporation electrodes.

8 . A method for sequential exposure of particles to different fluid streams, comprising:
directing a first flowing fluid containing particles and a second flowing fluid through a microchannel device of one or more substrates; supplying acoustic radiation to acoustically move particles from the first flowing fluid to the second flowing fluid with an acoustic transducer of the microchannel device; electroporating the particles in the microchannel device after the particles have been moved into the second flowing fluid with electroporation electrodes downstream of the acoustic transducer; and thereafter moving the particles out of the second flowing fluid, wherein, the second flowing fluid forms a central stream and the first flowing fluid forms a side stream of a sheath flow configuration.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the particles are acoustically moved out of the second flowing fluid by a second acoustic transducer downstream of the electroporation electrodes.

10 . The method of claim 8 , wherein:
directing the first flowing fluid and the second flowing fluid comprises flowing the first flowing fluid and the second flowing fluid through the microchannel device; supplying the acoustic radiation comprises acoustically moving the particles in the first flowing fluid to the second flowing fluid with the acoustic transducer of the microchannel device; and the microchannel device establishes, in the sheath flow configuration, a sheath flow of the first flowing fluid on either side of the second flowing fluid.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the particles are acoustically moved out of the second flowing fluid by a second acoustic transducer downstream of the electroporation electrodes.

Assignees

• Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc

Inventors

• Tandon Vishal
• Lissandrello Charles A
• Balestrini Jenna Leigh
• Dubay Ryan A

Classifications

• B01L3/502761 Primary

  specially adapted for handling suspended solids or molecules independently from the bulk fluid flow, e.g. for trapping or sorting beads or physically stretching molecules · CPC title

• A61M1/3678

  Separation of cells using wave pressure; Manipulation of individual corpuscles · CPC title

• A61M2205/0244

  Micromachined materials, e.g. made from silicon wafers, microelectromechanical systems [MEMS] or comprising nanotechnology · CPC title

• B01L3/50273

  characterised by the means or forces applied to move the fluids · CPC title

• B01L2300/0816

  Cards, e.g. flat sample carriers usually with flow in two horizontal directions · CPC title