Research Overview Research conducted at the Columbia Biofluidic Micro Systems Laboratory centers on integrated micro/nanosystems for biological sensing and manipulation, with an emphasis on integration of MEMS transducers with microfluidics for characterization and manipulation of biomolecules. This approach allows biomolecules to be studied in well-controlled micro/nanoenvironments of miniaturized, integrated devices, and may enable novel biomedical investigations not attainable by conventional techniques. We take a particular interest in label-free biomolecular analysis methods. As they do not require the use of molecular labeling groups to report binding, label-free methods can afford significant savings in time and money as would be required by label development, and allow elimination of potential interference of labels with the biomolecular binding systems under study. Research activities at our laboratory are organized into the following thrusts: Stimuli-responsive manipulation of biomolecules Thermally controlled characterization of biomolecules MEMS affinity sensors for monitoring of metabolites Polymer-enhanced micro/nanofluidic systems Efficient and accurate microfluidic models to aid understanding and design of BioMEMS