Microfluidic system for screening disease based on physical properties of blood

A key feature of the 'One Health' concept pertains to the design of novel point of care systems for largescale screening of health of the population residing in resource-limited areas of low- and middle-income countries with a view to obtaining data at a community level as a rationale to achieve better public health outcomes. The physical properties of blood are different for different samples. Our study involved the development of an innovative system architecture based upon the physical properties of blood using automated classifiers to enable large-scale screening of the health of the population living in resource-limited settings.

The proposed system consisted of a simple, robust and low-cost sensor with capabilities to sense and measure even the minute changes in the physical properties of blood samples. In this system, the viscosity of blood was derived from a power-law model coupled with the Rabinowitsch-Mooney correction for non-Newtonian shear rates developed in a steady laminar Poiseuille flow. Surface tension was measured by solving the Young-Laplace equation for pendant drop shape hanging on a vertical needle. An anticipated outcome of this study would be the development of a novel automated classifier based upon the rheological attributes of blood. This automated classifier would have potential application in evaluating the health status of a population at regional and global levels.

The proposed system was used to measure the physical properties of various samples like normal, tuberculous and anemic blood samples. The results showed that the physical properties of these samples were different as compared to normal blood samples. The major advantage of this system was low-cost, as well as its simplicity and portability.

In this work, we proposed making a case for the validation of a low-cost version of a microfluidic system capable of scanning large populations for a variety of diseases as per the WHO mandate of “One Health”.