Abstract:

Biotransport of heat, mass and fluid plays a pivotal role in diverse realms of fundamental and translational research in human health. In this seminar, I will first discuss how to employ heat and mass transfer to stop biological time, and improve the survival of living biosystems from suspended animation at cryogenic temperature such as -196 °C (liquid nitrogen). I will highlight the first scalable pancreatic islet cryopreservation which could pave the way to cure diabetes, and a robust cryopreservation method for Drosophila (fruit fly) embryos. Next, I will discuss precise cell manipulation using microfluidic devices. Circulating tumor cell clusters (CTCCs) are 50-fold more metastasis-competent but are ultra-rare (~1 CTCC hidden among 100 billion blood cells). I will present the development of a label-free microfluidic sorting chip to recover CTCCs with >90% yield at 1L/h throughput using unprocessed whole blood, processing 1.4 billion cells per second, I will also introduce a “smart” microfluidic device enabled by microfluidic transistors for autonomous liquid handling of oocytes towards in-vitro fertilization (IVF) applications. Lastly, I will briefly discuss how engineering the transport of gold nanoparticles can improve the analytical sensitivity of lateral flow assays.

Biography:

Dr. Li Zhan is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at Purdue University. Prior to Purdue, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research focuses on two interactive themes: 1) manufacturing living biosystems and 2) engineering micro/nano-biomedical devices for applications including biopreservation, cell-based therapy, and early disease diagnostics. More about his research can be found here: https://www.zhanlab.org/

~ BME Host: Fiona Kolbinger ~

Zoom Link:  https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/91749359524?pwd=WEMgScpSSruG7fNpobR5fGQ3n47LbX.1

Students registered for the seminar are expected to attend in-person.

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