Luke P. Lee (Advisor)

BPN619: Digital Microfluidics Based Label-free Technique for Selective and Sensitive Detection and Identification of Biological Molecules; Plasmonic Droplet

Young Geun Park
2011

Direct detection and identification of low concentrated biological molecules selectively and sensitively without any labeling is necessary to obtain molecular finger printing information in short time, decrease significantly the mortality rate and reduce the cost of treating the sample. However, there is no existing technology to detect a variety size and shape of biological molecule from the biomedical sample in short time effectively. Here, we have developed a sensing platform of digital microfluidics to achieve label free detection of biological molecule. We reports that self-...

BPN589: Microfluidic High-Throughput Single-Cell Analysis

Qiong Pan
SoonGweon Hong
2011

A cell in vivo lives in a community, and understands its fate by interacting with other cells. It learns its position, characteristics and roles by cellular signals such as extracellular matrix, cytokine, hormone and other secretions. Even though cell-to-cell interaction is considered most critical in cellular events, its complexity has been the main obstacle for us to study details. In this respect, we need to simplify the study of cellular interaction by limiting the number of associating cells. Also a long-time observation is required to provide affluent information, because...

BPN547: Eagle-Beak Nanoantenna as Dual Electric Field and Thermal Gradient Generator for Single Molecule SERS

SoonGweon Hong
Eric P. Lee
Brendan W. Turner
2011

A nanoantenna, upon absorbing incident light, emits focused electric and thermal fields. Our proposed 'eagle-beak' nanoantenna generates strongly amplified electric fields (hot-spots) at its tip and along its edges. Also it is designed to utilize the two field gradients for preconcentration of target molecules around the hot-spots. Previously we demonstrated non-blinking single-molecule SERS with conventional Raman molecules with excellent enhancement factor of 10^14. Here, we expand its applications to Raman polarization studies as well as biomolecular detection (i.e. amyloid beta...

BPN600: Nanogap Junction Control of Gold Optical Antennas via Electroless Deposition

Benjamin M. Ross
2011

We demonstrate the fine control of the nanogap junction of optical antennas by electroless growth, which provides a simple but powerful method to tune nanoplasmonic properties for integrated optofluidics.

Project end date: 02/06/12

BPN580: Nanovolcano Array For Biomolecular Analysis

Seung-min Park
Soongweon Hong
2011

Optical transmission through a very small nanoaperture decorated with concentric gratings on the apex of a metallic micropyramid can guide the beam path after transmission. A micro-pyramidal probe with periodic grooves acts as an antenna in terms of beam radiation as well as a lens in terms of beam focus. We optically resolve that the transmitted beam is splitted to the corresponding pyramid surfaces guided by gratings. By using the pseudo-Kretschmann configuration and grating surface plasmon polariton coupling, we can explain that SPPs propagating along a pyramidal surface modulated...

BPN637: Novel Molecular Diagnostics Based on RNAi for HIV Detection

Erh-Chia Yeh
2011

Currently the mainstream technique for HIV diagnosis in resource poor settings is rapid diagnostic tests (eg. lateral flow assays). However, most of these tests do not provide a quantitative readout, shelf life is limited, has a large window of detection, and cannot monitor the patient's disease progression. Here we propose a novel technique for rapid on site diagnostics of HIV in a resource poor setting based on sensing the RNA interference levels. When CD4+T cells are infected by HIV, their RNA interference pathway is induced and RISC complexes become a sequence specific enzyme...

BPN632: Advanced Lateral Flow Assay (ALFA) to Monitor Tuberculosis Patient Response

John R. Waldeisen
Debkishore Mitra
Jessie Tung
Seung-min Park
2012

Our technology simplifies typical sample preparation and enhances detection sensitivity for blood-based lateral flow assays.

Project end date: 08/09/12

BPN633: Numerical Simulation of Degas-driven Flow in Microfluidic Devices

John R. Waldeisen
Debkishore Mitra
2012

This project develops a MATLAB model to aid systematic design and investigation of the numerous parameters that govern flow velocity and device loading time in degas-driven fluid flow.

Project end date: 08/09/12

BPN598: Toward Silk-based Biomedical Devices

Brendan W. Turner
Frank B. Myers
2012

Although silk is commonly known as a fiber, dissolved silk protein has recently received significant attention for its use in creating biocompatible, biodegradable, and mechanically tough materials. We have discovered that reconstituted silk fibroin (RSF) is an excellent material for molding of nano- and micro-scale patterned features. RSF alleviates several problems seen with current polymers used for micromolding (e.g. PDMS), such as device collapse and feature rounding. We have fabricated stable silk nano- and microstructures with aspect ratios of ~10 (height to diameter) where...

BPN650: Nanopores Generated by Photothermal Plasmic Antennas for Patterable In Situ Transfection in Tissue-scale

Chi-cheng Fu
Sahba Talebi Fard
Kyuwan Lee
SoonGweon Hong
2012

In the recent breakthrough of stem cell researches, somatic cells can be reprogrammed to pluripotent states or be converted to other cell lineages by delivery of transcription factors, RNA or small molecules. The first challenge to overcome is to deliver molecules cross cell membrane. Several delivery methods, such as viral infections, lipid-mediated transfections and electroporations, are widely applied due to their robustness and large-scale operation. However, the spatial and temporal controls are hard to achieve due to stochastic nature of bulk processes. Here we developed a...