News & Events

BSAC Seminar: Microtechnology for Interfacing with the Nervous System

February 26, 2013
Prof. Justin Williams Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison Neural Interface Technology Reserach and Optimization (NITRO) Lab February 26, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Michel Maharbiz

The brain has always been attractive to engineers. Neurons and their connections, like tiny circuit elements, process and transmit information in a dramatic way that is intimately curious to researchers in the computer science and engineering fields. Science has made great strides in the past few...

BSAC Seminar: Smart Microsystems Based on Piezoelectric and Thermoelectric Transduction

February 19, 2013
Dr. Erkan Aktakka Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Michigan February 19, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Michel Maharbiz

The rapid advances in solid-state electronics have opened a new era on how we interact with our environment. Micro transducers play an important role in this development by functionalizing the electronic devices to sense, transfer or respond to environmental or user data inputs. Within this context, smart materials can enable unique energy transduction mechanisms...

BSAC Seminar: Gangnam Style in Biologically-Inspired Microscale Robotic Systems

March 19, 2013
Prof. MinJun Kim Department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University March 19, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Luke Lee

Bacterial chemotaxis is widely studied to understand cells’ response to a stress environment. A cell is controlled by more than 40 genes in over 14 operons that produce proteins for the structural components of the flagella, the flagellar motor, transmembrane receptors and signal transduction. The signal transduction...

BSAC Seminar: Smart Central Venous Port for Early Detection of Bacterial Biofilm-Related Infections

March 12, 2013
Dr. Jacobo Paredes Department of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher March 12, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Dorian Liepmann

Central venous catheters (CVC) are commonly used in clinical practice to improve a patient's quality of life. Unfortunately, there is an intrinsic risk of acquiring an infection related to microbial biofilm formation inside the catheter lumen. It has been estimated that 80% of all human bacterial infections are biofilm-associated. Additionally, 50% of all nosocomial...

BSAC Seminar: Solar Energy Conversion by Overall Water Splitting Using Powder-Form Heterogeneous Photocatalysts

April 2, 2013
Prof. Kazuhiro Takanabe King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Division of Physical Sciences & Engineering, KAUST Catalysis Center, Saudi Arabia April 2, 2013 | 12:30 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Liwei Lin

Extensive energy conversion of solar energy can only be achieved by large-scale collection of solar flux. The technology that satisfies this requirement must be as simple as possible to reduce capital cost. Overall water splitting by powder-form photocatalysts directly produces a mixture of H2 and O2 (...

BSAC Seminar: Ring GINA: Highly Miniaturized Ring-Format Wearable Mote

April 2, 2013
Joey Greenspun Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Graduate Student Researcher April 2, 2013 | 12:00 to 12:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Kris Pister

Computer input devices such as mice and keyboards have remained largely unchanged since the dawn of the personal computer. The Ring GINA platform is capable of sensing and interpreting a user's hand and finger movements to emulate and enhance the functions of these standard input devices. A wearable platform frees the user from the need to know...

BSAC Seminar: Animating the Inorganic in Architecture: Making Thermobimetals Behave

April 16, 2013
Prof. Doris Kim Sung School of Architecture, dO|Su Studio Architecture, University of Southern California April 16, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Luke Lee

Like human skin, a building’s skin should be the first line of defense when considering cost-effective methods of internal temperature regulation. Reducing buildings’ reliance on mechanical cooling and energy use can have a tremendous impact on containing global warming, reducing heat island effects and decreasing fossil fuel consumption. Using smart materials...

BSAC Seminar: Microfluidic Devices for Direct Separation and Analysis of Cells Mediated by Transient Molecular Interactions

April 9, 2013
Prof. Rohit Karnik Department of Mechanical Engineering, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics Research Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology April 9, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Luke Lee

Multiple sample-processing steps present a challenge for the development of low-complexity devices for laboratory or point-of-care separation and analysis of cells. In this presentation, I will discuss a new approach that can directly separate, enrich, or analyze cells with minimal or no sample processing requirements. We show...

BSAC Seminar: Next Generation Microfluidic Circuitry via Optofluidic Lithography

April 23, 2013
Dr. Ryan Sochol Director, Micro Mechanical Methods for Biology (M3B) Lab BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley April 23, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Liwei Lin

Similar to the way in which integrated circuits revolutionized electronics, the advent of integrated microfluidic circuitry could significantly impact both chemical and biological fields. The introduction of an externally-controlled, multi-layer elastomeric microfluidic valve – often referred to as the Quake valve...

BSAC Seminar: Micromechanical Sample Testing

April 29, 2013
Dr. Simon Muntwyler FemtoTools, Switzerland April 29, 2013 | 01:30 to 06:00 | 400 Cory Hall, Hughes Room Host: Niels Quack

A FemtoTools FT-RS1000 micromechanical testing system will be available to test your samples. The tests will provide insight into the micromechanical properties of your sample such as stiffness, linearity, hysteresis, deflection range, etc. The measurement results will be given to you at the end of the demonstration. To ensure a successful test, prior discussion of each sample is required. If you are interested in the micromechanical...