by
Debjani Paul(Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
→
Europe/Stockholm
112:028
112:028
Description
Physical properties of cells, such as, shape, deformability, etc. have
recently generated a lot of interest as potential markers for
different diseases. For example, the red blood cells (RBCs) become
stiffer when infected by malaria parasites. Normally biconcave and
deformable red blood cells become both sickle-shaped and stiffer in
sickle cell anemia leading to blockage of blood vessels. In my lab we
are using microfluidic technology to probe cell size, shape and
deformability to diagnose different blood-related disorders. In this
talk I will briefly discuss two of our ongoing projects. The first
project quantifies the shape change of blood cells to rapidly detect
sickle cell disease. The second project is about enriching the
platelet population in blood using the variation in size and
deformability of different blood cells. The common goal of both these
projects is to develop portable and affordable devices to bring
disease diagnostics from hospitals to the patient’s bedside.
