Gel imaging system for biomedical research of novel fluorophores
Background:
This project is to design and implement a gel imaging system with fully customizable optical filters that will be user controlled to move in and out of the gel imaging system. This black box system will mount over various commercial UV transilluminator models and allow image capture on any standard smartphone camera. This gel imaging system is used to enable research on biomedically relevant fluorophores called nanoclusters. These nanoclusters can fluorescence at various wavelength, necessitating the customizable set of optical filters. This system will address the insufficiencies in current commercial systems as well as remain low-cost.
Existing Solutions/Background Research:
Most common manufacturers of gel imagers include: Azure, BioRady, ThermoFisher, UVP, Sygene, Vilber
- Most commonly a cube shape with tray to insert the gel film
- Touch screen to capture built-in camera or place to hold smart phone for camera capture
Ultimately these are thousands of dollars and often lack the sophistication and optical filters necessary for our sponsor's lab research.
Goal and Objectives:
Our team plans to design a gel imaging machine that will attach to various transilluminators, easily customize several filters, and enable cellphones to take pictures of the gel sheet attached to the transilluminator. The filter swapper will need to incorporate several considerations such as: capacity to hold several lenses at once, holding multiple lenses in a row at once, filter stacking abilities, and filter protection from wear and tear. The box design must incorporate several transilluminator sizes and designs, encapsulate other design components, and should be compact in size that is easy for storage in Copp’s lab. The universal phone mount must not damage the phone and be easily adjustable and accessible to take photos while the product is in use.
Objectives:
- Identify subsystems and components (11/7)
- Problem Definition Presentation (10/29)
- Complete Bill of Materials (11/21)
- Preliminary CAD Design (11/14)
- Preliminary Design Review (11/14)
- Proof of Concept (11/27)
- Q1 Report (12/19)
- Completed Manufacturing (12/5)
- Pilot Testing and Redesign (First Round -12/12, Second Round- 1/27, Further Rounds if necessary)
- Final Design CAD (2/17)
- Final Design Assembly (2/24)
- Q2 Report (3/1)
Stakeholder Needs and Expectations:
- Able to implement various phones for imaging
- Able to implemement and store various filters
- Able to be used with various illuminators
- Able to switch filters into the storage without external tools
- Able to swap filters for viewing without external tools
- Size efficient
- Easy to set up
- Easy to operate
- Durable
- The box mitigates the transmission of UV and ambient light
- Does not damage filters, transilluminator, or phone
Team Contacts:
Louis Kabe: lkabe@uci.edu
Nick Buzby: nbuzby@uci.edu
Olivia Hibson: ohibson@uci.edu
Sponsor/Advisor:
Prof. Stacy Copp: stacy.copp@uci.edu
Design Process:
Through the winter quarter we have created and iterated our prototype several times. Using sponsor feedback and troubleshooting with a product has given us a lot of insight we did not have in our initial design.
1st iteration: Our first prototype was mostly a mock up to test parameters and check dimensions, thus there were some design elements we had not yet addressed yet. For one, we had not designed anything to prevent the rod attached to the gear from slipping, thus our temporary solution was to tape it down. We also faced issues with the phone holder component as it did not have enough range of motion. The last key component that was missing was some kind of UV blocker for the slots where the filter fit in. With these considerations in mind, we fabricated our second model.
2nd iteration: Having received feedback from our sponsors, we got to work addressing all the issues with our first model. We added a spacer to fit onto the bar so the gear would stay in place, added customized stoppers to our phone slider to increase the range of motion, and created sliders that could be pushed in front of the slots when in use. This time a major issue was that the phone was too far from the filter, causing the image to be cut out slightly, we also still ran into some issues with the UV blockers not blocking all the light.
3rd iteration: With some last touches, this should be our finalized design. We decided it was best to remove the phone holder entirely, instead opting to create a platform where the phone could be placed. This means that the phone will no longer be secured to the device, however, this should not pose any issues when photographing samples.