This venture is looking for an animator
Objectives
Commercialize the Mosquito
The Mosquito is a scientific device used to measure force/displacement in for biomedical applications.
This system uses cantilevers or optical fiber-based sensors.
Specs for the optical fiber sensors
The transducer is only 125 microns in diameter and tens to hundreds of microns long.
It can measure μN-range forces and μm-range displacements, transversal to the length of the sensor.
The temporal resolution can be set in the sub-ms range.
It offers a great miniaturization path.
It is very low cost and can be made disposable.
Description
Mechanical properties of biological systems, as well as the processing of biomechanical stimuli by these systems have become essential for our overall understanding of cells and organs. We offer an improved, turnkey, user friendly and high throughput method for probing dynamic mechanical properties at the cellular level.
Micro and nano technology have recently opened the possibility for probing biomechanical properties of cells and their microenvironments. Cells process mechanical cues that in turn drive their functions, growth, differentiation, development, spatial migration, collective organization, etc. Our understanding of the microscopic biomechanical aspects of cells and organs is already coming to fruition, generating new disease and diagnostic paradigms. It is important to design new methods and instruments able to support the growing interdisciplinary work in this field, not only for fundamental scientific research, but also for clinical studies and diagnosis.
We propose an improved method for probing dynamic mechanical properties of biological systems. This method is based on a turnkey, high throughput and user-friendly system, at its core having an optical fiber-based force transducer. It is conceived to assist researchers and clinicians with minimal technical knowledge about its governing principles. The system can easily interface with other measurement methods. It greatly improves throughput of experimentation, it is easily adaptable for a great variety of samples, and it allows greater freedom for sample preparation and manipulation, as well as for the control of environmental conditions.
Contents
Communication and coordination
Communication channels
Messaging: Discord channel
For more generic discussions: Open forum, Main Sensorica mailing list
Social media: Sensorica Facebook page
Coordination tools
Planning
Status: Starting new prototype
Needs
Mechanical engineer (3D modeling and printing)
Electronics engineer (piezo actuators)
Notes
click to open notes[October 2020 - Tibi] Nicanor, a Research Associate at McGill University, recently joined the project to develop an open source force measurement system for Drosophila muscles.
... currently transferring information from the old website.
Documentation repository
LabView program for the Mosquito sensor.
Needs: equivalent in μManager, an open source integration platform
Incentives
Describe all layers of incentives...
Economic model
The short-term economic model for this venture is based mostly on public funding and crowdfunding.
The long-term economic model for this venture is built around open innovation and distributed manufacturing (DIY).
In short, for the long run, we're geared towards providing:
DIY kits (can be transactional kit sales) that provide required vitamins (non-digitally manufactured components) to build a particular tool (Zimmermann, 2014; Gibney, 2016).
Specialty parts / components, hard-to-find, custom (ex. BackYard Brains or OpenQCM both sell the most specialized and hardest to source components for their respective open hardware tools).
Help with calibrating and validating (scientific) hardware (can be transactional service) to provide security to prosumers who build their own tools. This provides prosumers with the confidence that their measurements or functionality are acceptably reproducible, accurate and precise.
Education / Training (ex. Open Source Ecology), include support. This can also follow the consulting business model (Fjelsted et al., 2012).
Ecosystem services: provide trust, validation, discoverability, help, a place to discuss and collaborate, etc.
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