Event
Special ChBE Seminar: Jiandi Wan
Thursday, March 31, 2011
11:00 a.m.
Room 2110 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Bldg.
Professor Srinivasa Raghavan
sraghava@umd.edu
Quantitative and Integrative Microfluidic Studies of Vascular Signaling Dynamics and Microbubble Emulsion
Jiandi Wan
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Princeton University
Microfluidics is the science and technology of systems that can precisely manipulate small amounts of fluids, including the control of cell behaviors and multiphase materials. Microfluidic-based systems, therefore, have the advantages for quantitative and integrative study of biological phenomena and controlled synthesis of functional materials.
This talk describes my work and plans on integrating microfluidic-based approaches to explore vascular signaling dynamics and the synthesis of microbubble-based functional materials. Specifically, I will introduce a microfluidic approach that can probe the dynamics of shear-induced ATP release from red blood cells (RBCs) with millisecond resolution and provide quantitative understandings of the mechano-sensitive ATP release processes in RBCs. Since extracellular ATP is an important regulatory molecule for many cell functions, and, in particular, for vascular signaling, the developed microfluidic approach is important for mechanistic study of vascular disease, diabetes, and to design effective therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, I will also describe a microfluidic approach that enables the controlled formation of three-phase materials to obtain micron-dimension structuring, e.g., gas-liquid-liquid microemulsions and microparticles with controlled porosity and shell thickness. The developed technology has applications for synthesis of biomedical materials, such as drug delivery particles and ultrasound contrast imaging materials.
