The Advanced Microfluidics and Microdevices Laboratory (AMMLab) is working with diverse multidisciplinary projects involving chip integration in biology, life sciences, and medicine, for pioneering next-generation healthcare systems. Our efforts are at all levels of innovation, design, and application of miniaturization technologies to manipulate, stimulate, and study biological objects. We mainly develop microfluidic and MEMS-based devices for applications in biology and life sciences. One of our key targets is to develop devices that allow for innovative experimentation for better understanding of basic biology. For example, we develop devices to study how cancer cells survive and escape the programmed cell death, how cancer cells migrate from place to another during metastasis, and how white blood cells respond to infections. Another objective of our work is to develop devices for point-of-care diagnostics and clinical applications. For instance, we develop devices to capture circulating tumor cells from blood samples of cancer patients, and try to correlate the number of captured cells with the outcome of chemotherapy treatment. Also, we plan to develop devices for capturing and numerating HIV-infected cells that would help in monitoring patients during treatments and/or acquiring AIDS. Another area of our research interest is to develop portable devices for monitoring the quality of water and food in developing and developed countries.
