(250l) Analysis of Lipemia Levels from Human Blood Samples Using Microchips

Lipemia is a transient status of high lipid levels in the blood that adversely affects health, donated blood quality for diagnostic tests/other. This project aims to develop a microchip device to detect lipemia with high speed, small sample, high sensitivity, and good stability analyze lipid levels in different bio-fluids. Four measurements were compared: (1) plasma electrical characterizations, (2) RBCs dielectrophoresis, (3) RBCs lysis, and (4) plasma UV-vis absorbance. UV-Vis absorbance results effectively detected free lipids level in blood of a healthy young donor for two cases: fasting for 10-12 hours, and post-meal 2-3 hours after a high sugar and fatty meal. Plasma UV-Vis absorbance results revealed substantial spectral differences between the cases. The overarching goal for this project is to detect lipemia states using a single drop of blood, which would enable nutritional and CVD screenings for medical interventions.