Sepsis affects up to 1.6 million people annually in the United States and carries a mortality rate of 28-50%, yet current diagnostics remain slow, indirect, and poorly correlated with disease severity. Our group has developed a microfluidic platform that uses isodielectric separation (IDS) to characterize neutrophil activation from as little as 50 µL of blood, with separation position shown to correlate significantly with sepsis severity. However, the current system relies on a multidimensional double-spiral (MDDS) purification stage driven by computer-controlled pumps, a bench-top signal generator and amplifier for IDS actuation, and expensive microscopy for imaging-all requiring costly equipment and expert operation, limiting clinical deployability. This SuperUROP project aims to develop a compact, robust, and reproducible version of the platform by: (1) consolidating the MDDS pump control electronics onto a custom PCB, (2) replacing the signal generator and amplifier with a miniaturized chip-based signal generation and amplification chain, and (3) substituting the current microscopy setup with a Raspberry Pi, microscope objective, and light source paired with a YOLO-based object detection algorithm for automated cell counting. Together, these improvements will enable a self-contained, low-cost instrument capable of producing neutrophil activation readouts without expert intervention, representing a key step toward deploying the IDS system as a point-of-care sepsis monitoring tool in the ICU.

I look forward to participating in SuperUROP because I can build critical research skills while participating in a project that can truly help patients. It will also be an excellent opportunity to apply the electronics skills I’ve developed in coursework.