FIACHRA O'LEARY BEng
PhD Research Postgraduate (2006-2009)

e: fiachra.oleary@ul.ie

t: +353-61-202471

Fiachra O'Leary graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Limerick in 2006. Fiachra has completed industrial experience with Boston Scientific (Galway), working as a manufacturing engineer on the improvement of the production and inspection of stents for less invasive surgery. Fiachra also received industrial experience with Nualight, working as a R&D engineer developing LED illumination technology. Upon completing his degree Fiachra returned to UL to carry out research in the area of microfluidics. His current area of interest is in the behaviour of capillary flow in micro-channels with applications in bio-assays.

PhD Project Title: A Microfluidic Immunoassay Device for Point-of-Care Diagnostics Utilising Capillary Driven Fluid Flow

Microfluidics is an emerging technology for advanced analytical chemistry, biology, diagnostics and biomedical research. The potential advantages of using microfluidic technology for diagnostic purposes are: reducing sample and reagent volumes, reducing sample analytical time, and bringing the diagnostic instrument closer to the patient. There are currently three major fluid driven flow methods for microfluidic devices; electrokinetic flow, external pressure and microfabricated pumps. These three methods require expensive and bulky equipment to achieve fluid flow through a micro-device. Capillary-driven flow does not utilise bulky equipment which makes it suitable for use in point-of-care diagnostic devices. Capillary driven flow is caused by the interactions of a liquid with the walls of a channel i.e. it is a function of the ability of the liquid to wet the walls of the channel. This research concerns microfluidic technology and its application in the engineering of micro-devices suitable for use in point-of-care environment. The main engineering aspect involved in this research is the design and optimisation of a microfluidic consumable and its detection system. The device will be designed for use in a point-of-care application and therefore it will be necessary to incorporate methods for sample-preparation, transport, mixing, reaction and detection on-chip without the use of large fluidic-delivery and detection hardware. Instead, the effects of passive phenomena of capillarity and laminar diffusion at the microscale will be investigated for this purpose.