Microfluidics in Biomedical Sciences Training Program

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The field of microfluidics is uniquely poised to make a broad impact in biomedical science through the miniaturization and massive parallelization of biological experimentation. For example, future advances in microfluidics could revolutionize disease diagnosis, drug discovery, and pathogen detection. For these impacts to be realized we need people conversant in engineering, chemistry, biological sciences, and the medical sciences. Currently, however, such cross-trained people are in short supply. To address this shortage, we propose a five-year program to train the next generation of biomedical microfluidics experts. This program combines the expertise of faculty from engineering, chemistry, and the medical school plus the world-class Solid State Electronics Laboratory (SSEL) and Micromechanical Integrated DMA Analysis Technology (MIDAT) facilities for state-of-the-art micro- and nanofabrication. The premise of the program is that students should have significant training in both the methods of microfluidics and in the biomedical applications of this technology. Such training enhance the communication between disciplines, identification of solvable and clinically relevant problems, and selection of appropriate tools to solve these problems. The training of the students in this program will involve a combination of lecture and lab course work, a seminar and workshop program, a cross-disciplinary laboratory rotation and co-mentor, and an annual symposium beyond the requirements in the trainee's home department. The core course for the program, "Transport in Microfluidic Systems," has already been developed two years ago. Students from both engineering and basic sciences have completed the course. The seminar and workshop program, developed and run by the graduate students, was established last year and has been very successful. The series has workshop and tutorial sessions teaching principles in microfluidics in addition to both internal and external speakers. We hope to put in place the additional programs with the funding of this proposal. We feel that this combination of practical training, cross-disciplinary exposure, and intensive microfluidic study will produce students well positioned to answer the growing need for highly educated and trained microfluidic experts.