Micro-Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering
Objective:
Micro-Nanotechnology and molecular engineering research are concerned with the design and testing of microdevices which can affect the behavior of individual molecules or systems of molecules to perform specific functions. The nature of molecular interactions allows for an innumerable amount of potential applications.
What We Do:
- Micro-Fluidics and micro-fabrication
- Development of biomembranes
- Biomedical microelectromechanical systems
Applications:
- Drug Testing and Drug Development
- Making Models of the Human Body to understand the mechanism of disease
- Disease Treatment
Relevant Research From BME Faculty
Dr. Xudong Fan – An integrated microwell array platform for cell lasing analysis
Laser emission-based detection technology enables novel sensitive cell and tissue analysis for cancers and drug development.
- We have prototyped and characterized an automated, integrated microwell array platform for high throughput, systematic and statistical studies of cell lasers.
- The microwell array does not affect the cell lasing performance, but makes the captured cells more resistant to disturbance, thus allowing us to track individual cells and perform various analyses on them.
- Automated detection and high throughput long-term monitoring of cell lasing profiles is demonstrated using this platform.
- Our platform further enables the establishment of a reference baseline that represents the collective responses of cells to a global change and the identification of rare “abnormal” cells that deviate from a large cell population.
- Further integration of microfluidic channels that facilitate cell incubation, drug treatment and downstream processing and analysis will open the door to applying the cell lasing approach to single cell analysis and drug screening.
Figure X. Lasing threshold (a) and lasing spectrum (b) of a cell captured in the microwell. (c) CCD image of the lasing cell. The red color results from mirrors rejecting green color in the illumination light coming from the bottom. Fluorescence from the cell is also filtered out by the mirror and therefore only strong lasing signal is detected and shown in the image. (d) Lasing spectra of a cell captured in a microwell in long term monitoring. Curves are vertically shifted for clarity. The arrow indicates the peak whose wavelength was tracked.
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