Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series

Speaker: Wyatt Shields, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering University of Colorado Boulder

Talk Title: Programmable Microrobots for Biomedicine

Abstract: Colloidal particles are often used as building blocks for generating hierarchical structures with useful capabilities at small scales. However, the capabilities of such structures often depend on the physical properties of the particles. My research group is interested in broadening the complexity of microparticle designs, giving rise to distinctive behaviors outside of equilibrium. Inspired by microorganisms, we fabricate and synthesize microparticles that are highly dissipative, bestowing the fascinating and occasionally useful capability of harvesting energy from their environment and locally dissipating it to perform specific functions, such as self-propel or reconfigure (e.g., latch, crawl, contort). In my seminar, I will highlight our efforts to engender symmetry-breaking principles into microparticles for directed motion using energy from external acoustic, electric, and magnetic fields. I will describe how particle systems can be intelligently designed to actuate in prescribed ways. Building on basic principles, I will share how these dissipative systems can be used in functional assays for biomedicine. I will discuss how active particles can in some cases enhance the transport of drugs through biological barriers, facilitate the sensitive detection of biomolecules for disease identification, and cooperate with immune cells to enhance the performance of cell-based immunotherapies. Overall, I hope to convey how active and responsive microparticles show promise as a powerful and potentially disruptive tool for next-generation biomedicine.  

Biography: Wyatt Shields joins us an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received his B.S. from the University of Virginia in 2011 and Ph.D. from Duke University in 2016. He performed a brief postdoc at NC State on active matter and a second postdoc at Harvard University on cell-based immunotherapies. He started his research group at CU Boulder in 2020 and has gained national recognition for his work with awards such as the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, the NSF CAREER award, the ONR young investigator award, the Pew Biomedical Scholars award, the NIH MIRA, and most recently the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. His group focuses on developing field-responsive and active particles as vehicles for next-generation biosensing, drug delivery, and immunoengineering. 

Host: Eunji Chung

Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Carla Stanard