Grad Student Receives Inaugural Fellowship

Aug. 29, 2016 - Biomedical engineering graduate student Erik Werner has been named the first recipient of the new SLAS Graduate Education Fellowship Grant by the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening. Werner, who collaborated on the grant application with his faculty adviser Elliot Hui, will use the $100,000, two-year fellowship to hone an innovative high-throughput droplet-array screening device that can improve drug discovery.

SLAS is an international organization of more than 20,000 scientists, engineers, researchers, technologists and others from academic, government and commercial laboratories. It seeks to improve the practice of life sciences research and development, discovery and technology.

Werner was selected from a field of 24 candidates from four countries based on his accomplishments as well as the quality and promise of his research proposal.

His team is working to improve high-throughput screening for drug discovery. “Typically, the first step in developing a new drug is to test millions of drug-like compounds against a therapeutic target,” Werner explains. His project will use integrated microfluidic digital logic to address a large array of droplets, shrinking reaction volumes in a typical screening assay more than 100 times and greatly decreasing the cost of each screen. In addition, entire libraries of molecules can be screened on a single chip, increasing throughput dramatically.

“We had a number of excellent proposals and candidates, and Erik rose above,” said Susan Lunte, chair of the SLAS Grant Review Panel.

“Since the research is centered around a microfluidic device, the funding will allow us to make the most of the microfabrication facilities at UCI such as BiON and the INRF,” Werner says.

Werner, who expects to complete his degree in 2019, is highly regarded by his UC Irvine mentor. “Erik is one of the most promising researchers I have seen,” says Hui. “He gets his hands dirty and gets things done. Beyond simply having ideas, he executes and builds. Furthermore, he is very strong in his ability to assess failed attempts and understand what needs to change.”

-- Anna Lynn Spitzer