Particle Enhanced Droplet Analytics (PEDRA)

Personalized and preventive medicine and pollution monitoring are examples that demand nextgeneration
analytical devices that unlock the opportunity for faster, cheaper, and more sensitive
screening and analysis. To address this need, scientists use microfluidics to generate isolated
droplets that serve as micro-reactors to perform high-throughput assays. Incorporating dispersed
beads in confined droplets has become popular to enhance the surface area for capturing analytes
while decreasing the needed reaction volume. However, many challenges are still faced in handling
beads, which can be labor-intensive and time-consuming.
For this purpose, it is proposed here to produce a radically new platform of spatially ordered arrays
of immobilized particles, which can be coupled with an automated high-throughput droplet dispenser.
The arrays are produced by leveraging our recent advancements in the rubbing assembly of dry
powders into ordered 2D structures. PEDRA will utilize a particle-transferring technique to immobilize
them on sticky polymers.
Testing these ordered particle arrays together with world-leading (bio-)analytical scientists will
illustrate that these novel platforms are potentially groundbreaking, as a constant number of beads
enders reactions more reproducible and efficient, while drastic surface enhancement will provide a
more sensitive analysis. We will explore immunoassays using fluorescence microscopy, label-free
diagnostics, SERS, and liquid chromatography.