Headlines

7th Annual Industry Research Symposium: Jente Lu receives 2008 Fariborz Maseeh Best Research Poster Award, May 19, 2008

Lab on a Chip Critical Review Paper: Droplet Microfluidics, Jan 11, 2008

Biochips Publication: Integrated Biochips for DNA Analysis, Jan 01, 2008

UC Irvine Press Release: UCI scientists find new way to sort stem cells, Dec 20, 2007

Archived Laboratory News

Thank you for visiting the Biomolecular Microsystems and Nanotransducers (BioMiNT) in the Biomedical Engineering Department, University of California at Irvine. Our focus is in developing the microscale and nanoscale platform technologies for the interrogation and manipulation of biological and physiological activities. We strongly believe the future of biotechnology and biomedicine to be driven by instruments and devices that can function at the scale of the critical biological elements.

By building on the broad technological base of microsystems technologies (MEMS, microfluidics, micro-optics, biosensors, microelectronics), integration of multifunctional components and interface to the operator is established. The microscale allows devices that are either implantable or can serve as interventional tools to access essentially any part of the human anatomy minimally invasively. The development of microfluidic processors for the integration of sample collection, sample transport, sample preparation, and sample detection requires novel platforms for the sensing and actuation of a wide range of biological species. It is ultimately critical to develop on these microsystems nanoscale interfaces to biological molecules, including nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and various small molecules.

We are focusing our efforts on two main microsystem platform technologies, controlled micro/nano droplet generation and micro electrofluidic (e.g. MHD, DEP) systems. The applications of our research include the directed synthesis of drug release micro/nano particles, digital bioassays in droplets for point-of-care diagnostics, artificial cells for protein synthesis and biomolecular power harvesting, directed differentiation of neural stem cells, high throughput combinatory screening in droplets, and most recently the development of microtools for interventional neuroradiology.

Regardless of whether it is the microscale or the nanoscale that we exploit, it is ultimately the meter scale (human body) that counts!! It is our sincerest hope that the technology we develop will fundamentally change the way healthcare is practiced today in terms of lower cost, greater accessibility, more individual control, broader distribution, and increased options for every walk of life.

Please direct any academic inquiries to Dr. Abraham P. Lee.