E!113461, ACOUPLAST, AcouSort AB
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | AcouSort AB - AcouSort AB Medicon Village |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 5 000 000 |
| Project duration | October 2019 - March 2023 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Eurostars |
Purpose and goal
Acoustophoresis is a method to move cells in a microchannel using ultrasound, for example to remove the cells from a blood sample to enable rapid clinical analysis of the blood plasma. This has so far required chips made from hard materials such as glass or silicon that effectively reflect ultrasound and create resonance in the chips´ microchannels. In the AcouPlast project, we developed methods to use chips made from more cost-effective soft materials instead.
Expected results and effects
Enabling the use of cost-effective soft materials in our chips makes them cheaper and easier to integrate with other steps in the blood analysis. They could potentially then be built into the analyzer so that it can receive a blood sample directly from the patient and perform both the separation and analysis of the blood plasma and give an answer directly. In this way, centrifugation of the sample can be avoided, which reduces time, manual labor and the risk for errors. The new chips are thus after further development expected to make diagnostics faster, safer and cheaper.
Planned approach and implementation
The project is based on a patented invention from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and AcouSort. To take the new method all the way to clinical use we have furthermore involved researchers in acoustic separation from Lund University (LU) and microscale manufacturing expertise from another department at DTU and the Danish company Ortofon. In this project, AcouSort has designed chips based on simulations from DTU which were then manufactured by Ortofon and tested together with LU to iteratively arrive at a well-functioning design.