The BioMiNT Lab at UC Irvine has developed a microfluidic platform that uses AESOP technology to deliver genetic material into cells, which engineers them to fight diseases like cancer. Ex vivo cell and gene therapy has the potential to save lives. Despite having a successful prototype, the problem is that the platform is currently made from Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicone polymer that has an operation time of 10 minutes and cannot be mass-produced quickly or at a low cost. In addition, FlexDym, another industry-standard material in biomedical engineering, has been used and is faster than PDMS, but it comes at a higher cost. Team FloBoss’s objective is to transition this platform from PDMS and FlexDym to the Polypolypropylene thermoplastic. This material extends the operation time, increasing the throughput, lowering manufacturing costs, and enabling large-scale production. In addition, new designs by Team FloBoss are creating higher throughputs and extending the operation time of the LCAT chip. This brings costs down more, helping healthcare be accessible to more people. Scaling up this technology allows cell-based therapies to be more accessible to hospitals, medical professionals, and the patients who need cell gene therapy the most.
Microfluidic Cell Engineering Platform: Spring 2026
Summary
Technical Approach/Methodology
Our platform, AESOP, uses Lateral Cavity Acoustic Transducers (LCATs) to perform high-throughput cell sorting and intracellular delivery on a microfluidic chip. A piezoelectric transducer, driven by a signal generator and amplifier, generates the acoustic energy that creates vortices in the chip. These vortices generate fluid shear forces that temporarily open nanopores in cell membranes, and a secondary electric field further expands these pores, allowing therapeutic cargo to enter the cells. On the fabrication side, we use hot embossing to form microfluidic chips from thermoplastics, using precision silicon wafer molds to produce chips with the channel geometries required for LCAT operation. Testing has been done on the material compatibility of Polypropylene to ensure reliable, defect-free chip production. In addition, new designs are paired with the polypropylene through standard operating procedures that are supervised by industry experts, such as Mohammad Aghaamoo and Abraham Lee. Looking ahead, a key engineering challenge will be scaling the platform to support larger chip sizes while maintaining uniform performance across the device.
Outcomes
As of June 10, 2026, we have designed and produced a microfluidic chip that has a pumping rate of five microliters per minute. This is a 250% increase over the standard two microliters per minute that we get from the standard LCAT designs and can hold up to 100 microliters, because of the large chip design. In addition, Team FloBoss has fabricated the microfluidic platform using Eden Tech’s hot embossing machine via polypropylene using the standard LCAT designs. This material costs 4800% less than the FlexDym and takes about 15 minutes to produce, compared to the two days that PDMS takes. These are significant advances in microfluidic technology that will make healthcare much more economical.