Fluidics on a Compact Disc (CD) for Molecular Diagnostics and Carbon-MEMS (C-MEMS) Fractal-Like Electrodes for Energy Conversion

2009-2010 IGERT-Lifechips Seminar Series

Featuring Marc Madou, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine

Location: CalIT2, Room 3008
Open to the public. Refreshments will be provided

Abstract:
Nucleic-acid (NA) based diagnostics hold much potential, especially for the more rapid and accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases. However, nucleic acid diagnostics are still impractical to implement in many settings, requiring, to name a few, large and expensive labs with sophisticated equipment, a well-trained staff, and many hours of labor. The first part of this talk focuses on the research, design, and development of centrifugal, microfluidic platforms for nucleic acid analysis and diagnostics. In particular, novel microfluidic systems are presented towards sample-to-answer in vitro diagnostic applications, to make nucleic acid diagnostics a reality by overcoming many of the current hurdles.   In the second part of this talk we introduce fractals as an optimal geometry for minimizing the work lost due to the transfer network while maximizing effective surface area. In many electrochemical energy conversion systems it is advantageous to have such a large surface-to-volume ratio while minimizing the internal resistance (e.g. batteries and fuel cells). The methods we will report on represent possible approaches using carbon-MEMS to obtain fractal-like carbon electrodes. We describe fabrication methods to achieve the integration of top-down fabricated carbon microstructures with bottom-up grown carbon nano particles.

About the Speaker:
Before joining UC Irvine, Marc Madou, Ph.D., Chancellor's professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) was vice president of advanced technology at Nanogen in San Diego, Calif.  He specializes in the application of miniaturization technology to chemical and biological problems (BIO-MEMS).  He is the author of several books in this burgeoning field he helped pioneer both in academia and in industry.  He founded several micromachining companies and has been on the board of many more.

Madou is also a distinguished honorary visiting professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India (2004-present), honorary visiting professor at IIT Kharagpur, India (2009-present), visiting professor at UNIST (World Class University Scholar, WCU), South-Korea (2009-present), and visiting professor, Medical Informatics and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MIMEMS) LAB, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, (2009-present).  

Madou was the founder of the SRI International’s Microsensor Department, founder and President of Teknekron Sensor Development Corporation (TSDC), Visiting Miller Professor at UC Berkeley and Endowed Chair at the Ohio State University (Professor in Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering). He has just finished the third edition of Fundamentals of Microfabrication, an introduction to MEMS which has become known as the “bible” of micromachining.  At UC Irvine (USA) and UNIST (South Korea), Madou works on carbon-MEMS, a CD-based fluidic platform, solid state pH electrodes, artificial muscle for responsive drug delivery and integrating fluidics with DNA arrays as well as researching label–free assays for the Molecular Diagnostics platform of the future.

For more information on seminar and Lifechips program, please visit www.lifechips.org.