Events Calendar

Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

Speaker: Abraham Lee, Ph.D., William J. Link Professor and Chair, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, UC Irvine

Talk Title: Microfluidic Delivery of Medicine at the Biological Scale

Abstract: Microfluidic Delivery of Medicine at the Biological Scale

Abraham P. Lee

1*Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California at Irvine
2Micro/nano Fluidics Fundamentals Focus (MF3) Center
E-mail: aplee@uci.edu



ABSTRACT

Life at the fundamental level is an intricate network of compartmentalized volumes of molecules with specialized functions and energy fields that drive them. This compartmentalization enables precise reactions that allow complex operations such as the immune response, regulation and adaptation, repaire and maintenance, parallel processing, and hierarchical self-assembly. The same compartmentalization also inspired “digital biology” where molecules and purified reagents are co-located in “digital reactors” and manipulated by microfluidic operations. Microfluidic technologies enable the processing and manipulation of volumes that are equivalent to the fundamental units in biology (cells – 10s picoliters, organelles – femtoliters, viruses, biomolecules - < attoliters). In this talk I will focus on these digital microfluidic processors that are developed in my lab. These devices are capable of detection and manipulation at the cellular and molecular level with high throughput for large-scale molecular and cellular analyses. In this talk, I plan on introducing three projects in my lab: (1) a 1-million droplet array platform for DNA studies and genetic analyses. In this platform, we take advantage of droplet microfluidics to develop bioreactors at the cellular scale that confine the reagents for single molecular amplification and large-scale detection. We developed the microfluidic techniques that enable the self-assembly of tunable 3D droplets for ultra-high-density digital micro-reactor arrays. This project has implications in personalized medicine. (2) A microfluidic platform to produce lipid vesicles as artificial cells that can mimic cellular machinery in a controlled and high throughput manner. The same platform is also used to produce acoustically-activated artificial cells with the potential for theranostic (therapeutic and diagnostic) applications. (3) Lateral cavity acoustic transducers (LCATs) towards sample-to-answer point-of-care applications. These LCATs are versatile microfluidic platforms capable of pumping, mixing, sorting, and separation.



Biography: 1*Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California at Irvine
2Micro/nano Fluidics Fundamentals Focus (MF3) Center
E-mail: aplee@uci.edu

Host: BME Department

More Information: Abstract USC.doc

Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta