Abnormal blood clot stiffness is an important indicator of coagulation disorders arising from a variety of cardiovascular diseases and drug treatments. Here, we present a portable instrument for elastometry of microliter volume blood samples based upon the principle of resonant acoustic spectroscopy, where a sample of well-defined dimensions exhibits a fundamental longitudinal resonance mode proportional to the square root of the Young’s modulus. In contrast to commercial thromboelastography, the resonant acoustic method offers improved repeatability and accuracy due to the high signal-to-noise ratio of the resonant vibration. We review the measurement principles and the design of a magnetically actuated microbead force transducer applying between 23 pN and 6.7 nN, providing a wide dynamic range of elastic moduli (3 Pa–27 kPa) appropriate for measurement of clot elastic modulus (CEM). An automated and portable device, the CEMport, is introduced and implemented using a 2 nm resolution displacement sensor with demonstrated accuracy and precision of 3% and 2%, respectively, of CEM in biogels. Importantly, the small strains (<0.13%) and low strain rates (<1/s) employed by the CEMport maintain a linear stress-to-strain relationship which provides a perturbative measurement of the Young’s modulus. Measurements of blood plasma CEM versus heparin concentration show that CEMport is sensitive to heparin levels below 0.050 U/ml, which suggests future applications in sensing heparin levels of post-surgical cardiopulmonary bypass patients. The portability, high accuracy, and high precision of this device enable new clinical and animal studies for associating CEM with blood coagulation disorders, potentially leading to improved diagnostics and therapeutic monitoring.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
July 2015
Research Article|
July 14 2015
A portable blood plasma clot micro-elastometry device based on resonant acoustic spectroscopy
C. R. Krebs;
C. R. Krebs
a)
1Department of Biomedical Engineering,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
Ling Li (李灵)
;
Ling Li (李灵)
a)
2Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
Alisa S. Wolberg
;
Alisa S. Wolberg
3Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
Amy L. Oldenburg
Amy L. Oldenburg
b)
1Department of Biomedical Engineering,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
2Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
a)
C. R. Krebs and L. Li contributed equally to this work.
b)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: [email protected].
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 86, 075005 (2015)
Article history
Received:
October 22 2014
Accepted:
June 29 2015
Citation
C. R. Krebs, Ling Li, Alisa S. Wolberg, Amy L. Oldenburg; A portable blood plasma clot micro-elastometry device based on resonant acoustic spectroscopy. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 1 July 2015; 86 (7): 075005. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4926543
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
Overview of the early campaign diagnostics for the SPARC tokamak (invited)
M. L. Reinke, I. Abramovic, et al.
An instrumentation guide to measuring thermal conductivity using frequency domain thermoreflectance (FDTR)
Dylan J. Kirsch, Joshua Martin, et al.
A glovebox-integrated confocal microscope for quantum sensing in inert atmosphere
Kseniia Volkova, Abhijeet M. Kumar, et al.
Related Content
Modification of a commercial thromboelastography instrument to measure coagulation dynamics with three-dimensional biomaterials
Biointerphases (April 2016)
The microscale evolution of the erosion front of blood clots exposed to ultrasound stimulated microbubbles
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (May 2016)
Blood coagulation monitoring under static and flow conditions with optical coherence tomography autocorrelation analysis
Appl. Phys. Lett. (April 2022)
Acoustic levitation of gels: A proof-of-concept for thromboelastography
J Acoust Soc Am (April 2014)
Assessment of clot degradation under the action of histotripsy and a thrombolytic drug
J Acoust Soc Am (April 2022)