{"id":9204,"date":"2019-12-18T09:03:36","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T14:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ufluidix.com\/circle\/?p=9204"},"modified":"2019-12-18T09:03:36","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T14:03:36","slug":"how-microfluidics-bridge-basic-sepsis-research-and-clinical-diagnostics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ufluidix.com\/circle\/how-microfluidics-bridge-basic-sepsis-research-and-clinical-diagnostics\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Lab to the Clinic: How Microfluidics Bridge Basic Sepsis Research and Clinical Diagnostics"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent special communication edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association, sepsis was defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection1<\/a><\/sup><\/span>. This definition highlights the devastating nature of sepsis; arising from a simple infection and spiralling to an uncontrolled and often fatal immune response. Recent epidemiological studies place sepsis mortality at a staggering 18%, making it the leading cause of death in intensive care units2<\/a><\/sup><\/span>. This amounts to more than 30 million cases globally each year, nearly 6 million of which ending in the patient death [who.int<\/a>]. Following largely disappointing and exceedingly expensive efforts in the development of sepsis-specific therapies, treatment of patients suffering from sepsis is left to clinical management of associated symptoms. Additionally, timely diagnosis of sepsis is imperative for effective treatment, however, most patients are presented to the clinic in an advanced, deteriorated state of disease. These substantial setbacks in the progression of sepsis treatment lead us to two major questions:<\/p>\n

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  1. How do we cost-effectively and accurately screen potential sepsis pharmaceuticals?<\/li>\n
  2. Can we diagnose sepsis patients earlier to permit corrective intervention before irreversible disease progression?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We believe microfluidics can help answer these questions.<\/p>\n

    In the pursuit of developing a single, manufacturable system to answer our outstanding questions in sepsis research, we add an additional question to the problem: how can the field of microfluidics overcome the implicit challenges faced when bridging basic science research and clinical application? It is clear that communication between the research lab and the clinic (a field often referred to as translational biomedical science) can have an immediate impact on the health care system and in the context of sepsis, this increased dialogue has left a profound mark on the disease.<\/p>\n

    Microfluidics and Sepsis Research<\/h2>\n

    Since the rise of conventional polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based microfluidic devices in the late 1990s and early 2000s, production of microphysiological systems (MPS) for a broad range of applications has increased, while the cost associated with these devices has declined. This large-scale development means that MPS are no longer primarily restricted to the labs of engineers and are now reaching the hands of knowledgeable biologists. From whole organ mimetics to blood-brain barrier models, microfluidic devices open the door to highly controlled studies on human cell lines and associated clinical samples. What is lost in physiological accuracy, is gained in simplicity and reproducibility, allowing for often complex or even unimaginable studies (when performed in vivo<\/em>) at the lab bench. These points are emphasized in the context of sepsis research due to the following:<\/p>\n