Using SAW devices to explore cell-sorting and biosensing for the diagnosis of blood cell pathologies in point-of-care settings

Diagnostics  at  point-of-care  is  a  rapidly  developing  field,  which  aims  to  bring laboratory  tests  to  the  patient’s  bedside.  This  in  turn  obviates  the  time  and  cost  of obtaining  samples  and  moving  them  to  laboratories.  Surface  Acoustic  Wave  (SAW) devices  are  used  in  mobile  phones,  industrial  equipment,  and  for  sorting/sensing. However,  their  translation  to  point-of-care  is  slow  –  mostly  due  to  bulky  ancillary equipment  like  syringe  pumps,  signal-generators,  and  amplifiers.  Thus,  the development  of  an  easy-to-use  SAW  chip  for  sorting  and  sensing,  with  portable actuators to diagnose blood cell pathologies in the point-of-care setting was explored in this thesis.