Department of Biomedical Engineering Posters and Presentations
A Contact-Lens-on-a-Chip Companion Diagnostic Tool for Personalized Ophthalmology
Poster Number
103
Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
3-2016
Abstract
Maintaining contact lens cleanliness is critical to ocular health and safety. Due to prolonged contact with the eye over the course of the day and regular handling, lenses are quickly soiled with tear deposits and easily contaminated with bacteria and other microbes. As part of a contact lens care regimen, multipurpose solutions (MPS) are used to disinfect, clean, rinse, and store contact lenses between uses. However, MPS products do not take into account the fact that lens wearers have a wide range of individual tear chemistries that may affect cleaning and disinfection outcomes. In this work, we develop and demonstrate, to our knowledge, the first microfluidic system that integrates contact lens materials, MPS, and human tears at sub-µL scales in a single device to assess the efficiency of lens cleaning and disinfection for personalized contact lens care. This platform enabled the detection of significant differences in cleaning and disinfection outcomes between different individuals and between biofilm and planktonic bacteria.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Open Access
1
A Contact-Lens-on-a-Chip Companion Diagnostic Tool for Personalized Ophthalmology
Maintaining contact lens cleanliness is critical to ocular health and safety. Due to prolonged contact with the eye over the course of the day and regular handling, lenses are quickly soiled with tear deposits and easily contaminated with bacteria and other microbes. As part of a contact lens care regimen, multipurpose solutions (MPS) are used to disinfect, clean, rinse, and store contact lenses between uses. However, MPS products do not take into account the fact that lens wearers have a wide range of individual tear chemistries that may affect cleaning and disinfection outcomes. In this work, we develop and demonstrate, to our knowledge, the first microfluidic system that integrates contact lens materials, MPS, and human tears at sub-µL scales in a single device to assess the efficiency of lens cleaning and disinfection for personalized contact lens care. This platform enabled the detection of significant differences in cleaning and disinfection outcomes between different individuals and between biofilm and planktonic bacteria.
Comments
Presented at: GW Research Days 2016