Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences (KIAS) is offering a short course on paper microfluidics: design, fabricate, test, and report.

 When: 20 – 21 April 2019

Where: Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences, Bagdol, Lalitpur

Target participants: BS/MS students of science and engineering

Number of participants: 20

Application deadline: 10 April 2019

Fee: NRs. 100/- (covers free access to lectures, demonstrations, course materials, laboratory facility, lunch and snacks/tea/coffee, CERTIFICATE)

Application process: Submit your online application form HERE. Selection notice will be sent by 15 April 2019.

Course description

Microfluidics in general deals with the manipulation of fluid in a microscale domain. It is a field at the interface of chemistry, physics, engineering and life sciences. This field is relatively new and is fast evolving. It presents exciting future perspectives in a wide variety of fields such as from laboratory equipment to point-of-care diagnostics and fuel cells to stem cells benefiting both research and industrial community. Paper-based analytical devices (PADs) or paper microfluidics are new class of devices/methods/tests that are gaining popularity in clinical diagnostics, environmental pollution monitoring and other applications. The PADs are made up of ‘paper’ and are considered to be low-cost, easy to use at point of need and are also praised for not requiring highly skilled personnel to use [1].

Although the advancements in microfluidics have sparked a lot of enthusiasm in the scientific community, this field lacks wider recognition in Nepal.

This short course aims to raise awareness of this technology by providing a platform for interdisciplinary learning for undergraduate and graduate students of various fields in Nepal. Participants will get acquainted with the basics of paper microfluidicsand then they will learn to design and fabricate the device, apply the device to test the quality of pharmaceutical products. Finally, students will submit the report of their class. After completing the course, students will be able to design a microfluidic device using a design software, fabricate the device using wax printing technology, use image processing software for quantitative analysis, and learn basics of report writing.

[1] Sharma, Niraj, Toni Barstis, and Basant Giri. “Advances in paper-analytical methods for pharmaceutical analysis.” European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 111 (2018): 46-56. full-text-PDF

Topics covered

1. Fundamentals of microfluidics
2. Introduction of paper microfluidics and its applications
3. Design and fabrication of paper microfluidics using wax printing technique – theory and hands on practice
4. Image processing for quantitative analysis – theory and hands on practice
5. Experiment: laminar flow and diffusion in paper microfluidics
6. Experiment: verification of Beer’s law using smartphone and paper device
7. Experiment: quantitative determination of a drug sample using paper device
8. Report writing

Instructors

1. Basant Giri (PhD in microfluidics from University of Wyoming, USA)
2. Amita Sharma (MS in microfluidics from Kansas State University, USA)
3. Pravin Pokhrel (teaching assistant)