Welcome to the Biomolecular Microsystems and Nano Transducers Lab at UC Irvine

Our focus is in developing the microscale and nanoscale platform technologies for the interrogation and manipulation of biological and physiological activities. We strongly believe the future of biotechnology and biomedicine to be driven by instruments and devices that can function at the scale of the critical biological elements.

By building on the broad technological base of microsystems technologies (MEMS, microfluidics, micro-optics, biosensors, microelectronics), integration of multifunctional components and interface to the operator is established. The microscale allows devices that are either implantable or can serve as interventional tools to access essentially any part of the human anatomy minimally invasively. The development of microfluidic processors for the integration of sample collection, sample transport, sample preparation, and sample detection requires novel platforms for the sensing and actuation of a wide range of biological species. It is ultimately critical to develop on these microsystems nanoscale interfaces to biological molecules, including nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and various small molecules.

The vision of BioMiNT research is to “communicate” with living systems at the micro- and nanoscale and in the process understand their functions and how they collectively contribute to how life works. The natural outcome was the understanding of how living systems can be repaired when “malfunction” occurs as a result of disease, injury, or decay. Notable microfluidic technologies that were developed and pioneered in Dr. Lee’s Lab include magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) micropump, dielectrophoresis (DEP) for cell sorting, droplet microfluidics, and cavity-bubble acoustic streaming transducers (CAST).

More recently, Dr. Lee’s research interest can be generally regarded as “microfluidic precision medicine” and include sorting and purification of stem cells, single cell analysis, hybrid particles for ultrasound-assisted drug delivery, point-of-care diagnostics, blood sample preparation, liquid biopsy and microfluidic devices for perfused vascular 3D tissue constructs. An emerging theme is microfluidic cell engineering for cell therapy, with two projects highlighting this area: development of artificial antigen-presenting cells and non-viral cell transfection microfluidic platforms that are high efficiency, high throughput, high viability, with uniform and controlled dosage delivery to each single cell of the population. We are currently working with collaborators on whole blood liquid biopsy of cancer patients by separating healthy WBCs, leukemic cells, CTCs and companion biomarkers. The holy grail is to be able to sample a patient’s drop of blood, and quickly assess the treatment options in real-time.

Regardless of whether it is the microscale or the nanoscale that we exploit, it is ultimately the meter scale (human body) that counts!! It is our sincerest hope that the technology we develop will fundamentally change the way healthcare is practiced today in terms of lower cost, greater accessibility, more individual control, broader distribution, and increased options for every walk of life.

Please direct any academic inquiries to Dr. Abraham P. Lee.