Acoustofluidic thin-film actuated chip for exosome separation from blood

AcouSome is a consortium stemming from the ongoing EIC-FET Open BioWings project, and consists of four of the BioWings projectpartners (AcouSort AB, DTU, Lund University and Day One Srl).

AcouSome has the ambition to build on the disruptive technology ofthin film actuated acoustofluidics developed in BioWings.

The results obtained in BioWings will be combined with a polymeracoustofluidics technology developed in the ongoing Eurostars AcouPlast project to fabricate a polymer-based microfluidic chip forseparating and enriching exosomes from blood for use in the next generation of point-of-care diagnostics.Exosomes are nano-sized extracellular vesicles that are released by a significant number of different cell types.

They are considered animportant biomarker, with high diagnostic potential in a wide range of diseases, including different kinds of cancer (glioblastoma,melanoma, prostate cancer and many others), hepatitis, kidney, cardiovascular and liver diseases. Therefore, there is an increasinginterest in exosomes as a powerful diagnostic tool.

Having the opportunity to isolate and analyze exosomes from a routine blood testis crucial for early detection of a wide range of diseases.In the AcouSome chip exosomes will be separated and enriched from blood by combining two steps already developed by LundUniversity and AcouSort.

First plasma will be separated from blood by flowing the blood through a microfluidic channel, pushing thecells towards the centerline of the channel using ultrasoundand and subsequently splitting the cell and plasma flows. Exosomes willthen be trapped and enriched from the plasma flow using a localized acoustic field.

The acoustofluidic chip will be driven usingthin-film actuators as invented together with DTU in the BioWings project.

The exosome separation cartridge is intended for samplepreparation in research labs and future diagnostic point-of-care instruments.