Healthcare is a driving force in the global economy. In 2014 alone, US healthcare spending grew 5.3% to exceed $3.0 trillion. That is nearly $10K per person, putting the total bill at nearly 18% of the US Gross Domestic Product. Beyond healthcare, chemical synthesis and the development of complex fluids is important to a number of industrial applications. Many diagnostic assays use the temperature dependence of different analytes as a diagnostic tool. For example, polymers different lengths have different melt temperatures. To potentially decrease these swelling costs, we have developed a chip-based electromagnetic measurement technique from 100 Hz to 100 GHz (and potentially up to 300 GHz), which opens new research opportunities at the interface between materials science, chemistry, bioengineering, and physics. The Associate will perform high frequency measurement, learn microfluidic fabrication, measure novel materials (proteins, biomolecules, and nanoparticles), and gain hands-on experience with on-wafer calibrations. This project will begin with exploring the potential use of on-chip electronics to detect and measure melt temperatures, to test potential applications in personalized medicine and real-time diagnostics. Electrical-based detection may even prove useful for real-time quality assurance in the manufacture of emerging protein-based therapies.

 

Reference

Booth JC, Orloff N, et al: Quantitative Permittivity Measurements of Nanoliter Liquid Volumes in Microfluidic Channels to 40 GHz, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 59(12): 3279, 2010

 

key words

Microelectronics; Microfluidics; Microelectronics; Diagnostics; Assays; Biology; Physics; Terahertz; materials; chemistry; engineering

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants