Research Overview

Research conducted at the Biofluidic Micro Systems Laboratory at CMU revolves around exploiting integrated micro/nanotechnologies, in particular microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfluidics, to enable and facilitate understanding of fundamental physical behavior of biological macromolecules. MEMS and microfluidics, after about two decades of rapid growth, are now well positioned as a powerful tool for studies of biological systems.

Our current research is focused on design, analysis and fabrication of MEMS-based micro/nanofluidic systems for manipulation and characterization of biofluids and biomolecules. We address the control and transport of in dividual biomolecules and/or their solutions in confined environments of micro/nanofluidics. We are interested in investigating the impact of micro/nanoscale confined geometries on biofluidic manipulation, as well as novel biomolecular manipulation methods that purposely exploit such geometries. We also explore the integration of MEMS and microfluidics to address measurements of fundamental physical properties (e.g., thermodynamic, hydrodynamic and structural properties) of biological macromolecules (e.g., DNA and proteins). Such measurements play a key role in understanding biomolecular events, such as conformational transitions and interactions of biomolecules, which determine various levels of biological function. The use of integrated MEMS and microfluidics will provide such salient advantages as multi-functionality integration, parallelized and high-throughput operations, and minimized consumption of biological samples and reagents.

Research thrusts at our laboratory are organized into the following three thrusts:

- Accurate and efficient microfluidic modeling
- Polymer micro- and nanotechnologies for biofluid and biomolecular manipulation
- Integrated MEMS and microfluidics