Resolved Particle Simulations of Microsphere/Cell-based Bioanalytic Systems

K. Pant, B.F. Romanowicz and S. Sundaram
CFD Research Corporation, US

Keywords: microsphere, cell, assay, design, resolved particle simulations

Abstract:
Microsphere and cell-based assays are emerging as the platform of choice for rapid quantitation of biomolecular interactions in bioagent detection, clinical diagnosis, drug therapy, etc. [1,2] Traditional assay designs have been driven by expensive trial-and-error experimentation. The availability of high-fidelity simulation tools for these complex microsystems can help accelerate the design cycle significantly. However, current models rely on a point particle approximation and are incapable of describing large particle dynamics or biochemical coupling adequately. In a novel development, we have successfully developed computational models for finite-sized cells/bead assay design within a multiphysics biomicrofluidic simulation software suite, CFD-ACE+. The developed models fully integrate large bead dynamics, convective-diffusive analyte transport and biomolecular binding on bead surface. In this paper, we present the modeling framework, along with several validation and demonstration case studies.

Nanotech 2004 Conference Technical Program Abstract