Characterization of flows in micro contractions using micro PIV and CFD to study the protein aggregation process

Protein aggregation is arguably the most common and troubling manifestation of protein instability, encountered in almost all stages of protein drug development. The production process in the pharmaceutical industry can induce flows with shear and extensional components and high strain rates which can affect the stability of proteins. We use a microfluidic platform to produce accurately controlled strain regions in order to systematically study the main parameters of the flow involved in the protein aggregation. This work presents a characterization of the pressure driven flow encountered in arrays of micro channels. The micro channels were fabricated in polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) using standard soft-lithography techniques with a photolithographically patterned KMPR mold. We present a relationship of the main geometrical variables of the micro channels and its impact on the extensional strain rate along the center line, for different cross sectional shapes and over a range of strain rates typically encountered in protein processing. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations have been carried out to gain more detailed local flow information, and the results have been validated with experiments. We show good agreement between the CFD and experiments and demonstrate the use of microfluidics in the production of a large range of controllable shear and extensional rates that can mimic large scale processing conditions.