Dorian Liepmann (Advisor)

With the development of transdermal drug delivery methods there is a growing potential for creating safer and more efficient means of vaccine delivery and improving access for children in remote areas of developing countries. Problems with conventional needle delivery in areas with limited supplies include the risk of blood borne pathogen transmission through accidental needle sticks, wastage and contamination during the reconstitution process, storage and cold chain maintenance. Microneedle based drug delivery systems consisting of an array of pointed, out-of-plane microneedles have...

Micron-resolution particle image velocimetry systems that measure flow-fields in micron-scale fluid devices have been used for almost 10 years at BSAC and other institutions, but are plagued with high capital costs and their cumbersome operating requirements. This work envisions creating a µ DPIV system that is considerably smaller, cheaper, easier to use and less hazardous. The proposed µ DPIV system achieves these goals through replacing the dual cavity Nd:YAG laser with a high power LED. In addition to the above benefits, a LED based µ DPIV system has advantages of adaptability...

Facial nerve dysfunction is a common problem affecting both genders, all races, and all ages and is caused by numerous medical problems, including stroke. In particular, the inability to blink causes serious long term problems both physically and psychologically. Electrical stimulation of a blink does not work because the current needed to induce a blink also causes intense pain. The long-range objective of our research is to develop an artificial synapse chip system that can be used in a novel therapeutic strategy for denervated muscles by mimicing the natural stimulation that...

We want to understand how microscopic swimmers navigate in complicated flow fields where the ambient fluid flow speed is much greater than their swimming speed. Up to now, the motility of these organisms, ranging from bacteria to small planktonic animals, has been studied in still water. While this is an important first step, it is essential to connect the motion in still fluid to the locomotion of organisms in their more complicated natural environments. In flowing water, these organisms are carried by the flow around them and can make only minor adjustments to their trajectory by...