Compact disc (CD)-based automated animal assay

Space biology research requires a compact and fully automated system. The unique environment of space flight experiments has limitations of power, size, weight, and crew intervention. In order to address these needs, a compact disc (CD)-based automatic microfluidic system was developed. The long-term goal of this research is to develop an automated microfluidic rotating CD cultivation system for to determine if the space environment is influencing particular genes. Caenorhabditis elegans was exploited for this research because it is a well-studied model organism for biological and biomedical research in genetics, aging and disease. Compared to other microfluidic technologies for moving small amounts of fluidic or suspended particles from site to site, the centrifuge-based system is well suited for various microfluidic functions such as flow sequencing, mixing, capillary metering, and flow switching. Those functions can be implemented by exploiting centrifugal, coriolis and capillary forces combined with specific microfluidic network. This automated microfluidic CD culture system contains a cultivation chamber, nutrient chamber, waste chamber, channels, and venting holes. The feeding and waste removal processes were achieved automatically using centrifugal force driven fluidics. The cultivation of C. elegans was successfully carried out on the automatic microfluidic CD system.