IMG research focuses on micro- and nanosystems for healthcare, energy, security, aerospace, transportation, consumer electronics, and other industries. Efforts include design, fabrication, characterization, and ultimately deployment of micro and nanotechnologies for a wide variety of applications. IMG is playing a leading role in the MIST Center (Multi-functional integrated system technology), an NSF I/UCRC program.
Read the latest Annual Report for more information.
Nicolas Garraud will defend his dissertation, entitled: "Characterization of the Rotational Dynamics of Magnetic Particles in Suspension " on Tuesday, 11/13, at 3:00 PM in NEB 409. Refreshments will be provided.
This week, the speakers for the IMG Seminar are:
Cells as Microsystems. Successful integration of MEMS with biomedicine requires an intimate understanding of biophysiological processes. Dr. Simmons will describe tools at the micro and mesoscale she uses to study these processes, including cells themselves! Specific applications in cancer and regeneration will be highlighted.
Capillary Force Driven Single-Cell Spiking Apparatus for Studying Circulating Tumor Cell. The characterization of single cells within heterogeneous populations has great impact on both biomedical sciences and cancer research. By investigating cellular compositions on a broad scale, pertinent outliers may be lost in the sample set. Alternatively, an investigation focused on the behavior of specific cells, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), will reveal genetic biomarkers or phenotypic characteristics associated with cancer and metastasis. On average, CTC concentration in peripheral blood is extremely low, as few as one to two per billion of healthy blood cells. Consequently, the critical element lacking in many methods of CTC detection is accurate cell capture efficiency at low concentrations. To simulate CTC isolation, researchers usually spike small amounts of tumor cells to healthy blood for separation. However, spiking tumor cells at extremely low concentrations is challenging in a standard laboratory setting. We report our study on an innovative apparatus and method designed for low-cost, precise, and replicable single-cell spiking (SCS).
Come learn about the exciting research done by Dr. Yoon's group! The students and research topics are below.
Benton 210 (E-Test)
Benton 237C (Litho-Lab)
This week, the speaker for the IMG Seminar is Dr. Erin Patrick on Applied Computational Modeling: More-than-Moore Devices to Neurotechnology
Computational modeling is often used for design of devices, however; it also provides one the ability better explain experimental results. This presentation highlights some of my work using modeling and simulation to better understand the performance of two dissimilar devices: Gallium Nitride heterostructure transistors and peripheral nerve interfaces.
Seahee Hwangbo will defend her dissertation, entitled: "Advanced Millimeter Wave Antenna Array Module For Modern Wireless Communications Using 3D System-in-Packaging Technology" on Monday, 10/08, at 10:00 AM in Nanoscale Research Facility 115. Refreshments will be provided.
Kartik Sondhi will defend his proposal, entitled: "Materials and Methods for Fabricating Multilayer Flexible Electronic Circuits" on Friday, 10/5, at 1:00 PM in LAR 234.
Refreshments and snacks will be provided!
This week, the speaker for the IMG Seminar is Dr. Alina Zare on Addressing spatial uncertainty during remote sensing data analysis.
Most supervised machine learning algorithms assume that each training data point is paired with an accurate training label (for classification) or value (for regression). However, obtaining accurate training label information is often time consuming and expensive, making it infeasible for large data sets, or may simply be impossible to provide given the physics of the problem. Furthermore, human annotators may be inconsistent when labeling a data set, providing inherently imprecise label information.
In the case of problems with imprecise label information, Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) methods are required. The Multiple Instance Adaptive Cosine Estimator (MI-ACE) approach is one of the few MIL methods that can estimate a representative target concept. In this presentation, an introduction to the MI-ACE approach will be provided along with a description of several MIL-based algorithms and results on a variety of data types and applications.
Come on out to learn about the research going on in the Nishida group! The students and research topics can be found below.
Benton 214 (M-test):
Benton 230 (Microfab):
Kangfu Chen will defend his dissertation, entitled: "Flow and Interaction Patterns Between Tumor Cells and Microfabricated Structures" on Monday, 9/17, at 10:00 AM in Nanoscale Research Facility 115. Refreshments will be provided.
This week, the speakers for the IMG Seminar are:
A filter array regulated microflow (FARM) chip for circulating tumor cell isolation . Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are cancer cells in the circulating system shredded from the primary tumor. CTCs have been considered as important biomarkers for early detection of metastasis, therapy monitoring and disease prognosis. However, the rarity of CTCs in the blood (tens of CTCs per mL blood) remains a technological barricade. We developed a Filter Array Regulated Microflow (FARM) chip combing filtration and immunoaffinity based CTC capture. The FARM chip is able to isolate CTCs with low deformability or high antibody expression level. Even more deformable CTCs with lower antibody expression are likely to be captured if the two components combination exceeds the CTC capture threshold. Overall, this method is capable of isolating, detecting and enumerating CTCs with high throughput and superb efficiency.
