The aim of this work was to explore an alternative to existing methods of detection for Human African Trypanosomiasis (also known as sleeping sickness). A new approach to diagnostics for sleeping sickness is needed, since the existing methods of detection employed in the field have significant shortcomings in terms of sensitivity, cost or ease of operation. In this work, the enrichment of trypanosomes from blood using travelling electric fields and the selective lysis of cells using optoelectronic tweezers will be presented. Both techniques allow for the enrichment of trypanosomes from blood samples but the first is more suited for an application as a point-of-care device, while the latter is also applicable to other cell types and offers greater flexibility. Besides demonstrating and quantifying the experimental results the work includes simulations to further explain the phenomena and investigate the underlying mechanisms. The results presented here offer a new method to enrich trypanosomes, a central step in any potential diagnostic tool. They open up the possibility to develop a new solution to the challenges posed by sleeping sickness diagnostics and allow for miniaturisation and automation of the process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:591955 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Kremer, Clemens |
| Publisher | University of Glasgow |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4822/ |
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