(4hm) Microfluidic functional assays for assessing the roles of extracellular vesicles in microvascular ischemia-reperfusion and thromboinflammation

Research Interests: My research interests lie at the interface of microfluidics, electrochemistry, electrokinetics, and vascular biology, and extracellular vesicles. Many diseases such as vascular dysfunction and hemoglobinopathies demonstrate highly heterogeneous clinical manifestations and responses to therapeutic interventions, thus favoring early diagnosis and patient-specific evaluation, prediction, and management. To address these challenges, my research program will leverage microfluidic technologies and (1) develop point-of-care platforms for integrated tests of multiple pathologically relevant diseases; and (2) develop microvascular-on-chip functional assays to enhance mechanistic understanding the roles of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in vasculopathy, and to enable personalized diagnosis and prognosis using EVs as biomarkers.

Teaching Interests: With my academic training in chemical and electrical engineering, and with my biomedical industrial experience, I will consolidate industrial examples, fundamental engineering theories and laboratory practices using a highly interdisciplinary teaching strategy in a student-centered learning environment. Specifically, I am interested in teaching core undergraduate or graduate level courses including Transport Phenomena, Reaction Kinetics and Electrochemistry, as well as creating new courses in Biosensing, Microfluidics, and Electrokinetics.

Academic and Industrial Research Experience: My Ph.D. research with Dr. Adrienne Minerick focused on fundamental understanding of ion electrochemical and electrokinetic behaviors under alternating current electric fields. In biomedical industry, I worked at Precision for Medicine - Apocell, Inc. and LI-COR Biosciences, Inc. and developed instruments for a) Circulating tumor cell enrichment, b) Microchip western blot, and c) Next generation immunostaining. In my postdoctoral training in Dr. Umut Gurkan’s lab, I have collaborated with partners from industries and healthcare systems and developed: i) point-of-care platform for integrated test of anemia and hemoglobinopathy, ii) microvascular-on-a-chip models for assessing the roles of extracellular vesicles in ischemia-reperfusion induced complement activation and thromboinflammation.

Complete List of Published Work in My Bibliography:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-1VwaskAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1

Funding:

• $148,120, Role: PI, (92000) Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies in Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Disorders, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• $100,000, Role: Project Director (PI: Mark Chance), Department of Defense-Air Force-Office of Scientific Researcher
• T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Role: Trainee (PI: Aaron Proweller and Mukesh Jain), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute