Abraham Lee
UC Irvine
Seminar Information
In the low Reynolds number regime, steady laminar flow control has enabled a broad range of microfluidic technologies with applications that range from point-of-care diagnostics, analytical instrumentation, bioassay drug screening, and sorting of biomolecules/cells. When in spatiotemporally confined micro- channels and interfaces, the laminar flow can take the form of flow streaming patterns and lend itself to fluid mixing by stretching and folding or chaotic advection. This presentation will introduce two types of microfluidic streaming, one based on acoustic activation of an air-liquid interface and one based on hydrodynamic shearing of an oil-water interface. The acoustic streaming phenomenon is embodied in a lateral cavity acoustic transducer format that can be used for pumping, mixing, and manipulation of small objects such as beads and cells. This platform is being developed for liquid biopsy to enrich for rare cells from blood and also to engineer cells for diagnostics and therapeutics. The hydrodynamic shearing configuration is used to encapsulate biological cells in droplet emulsions. This platform is being developed for single cell analysis. Both platforms are part of the precision medicine paradigm to develop treatments for patients based on molecular-targets that are effective in vivo when administered.
Prof. Abraham (Abe) P. Lee is Chancellor's Professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at the University of California, Irvine. He is Director of the NSF I/UCRC “Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics” (CADMIM). Dr. Lee served as Editor-in-Chief for the Lab on a Chip journal from 2017-2020. Prior to UCI, he was at the National Cancer Institute and was a program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA (1999-2001), Senior Technology Advisor at National Cancer Institute (NCI), and a group leader with Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL). Over the years, Dr. Lee has pioneered research in applying microfluidics to biomedical applications and currently focuses on integrated microfluidic systems for precision medicine including liquid biopsy, microphysiological systems, cell engineering, and immunotherapy. His research has contributed to the founding of several start-up companies. He owns 55 issued US patents and is the author of over 130 journal articles. Professor Lee was awarded the 2009 Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize and is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).