Lee Co-chairs Global Conference

Nov. 21, 2017 - Samueli School biomedical engineering professor Abe Lee recently co-chaired MicroTAS 2017, an international conference attended by more than 1100 life science, chemistry and biomedical engineering researchers from all corners of the globe.

The event, held this year in Savannah, Ga., is the premiere conference in the field of microfluidics, microfabrication, nanotechnology, integration, materials and surfaces, analysis and synthesis, and detection technologies. Attendees hailed from 35 countries around the world, including Austria, China, Denmark, Israel, Jordan, Spain, Switzerland and New Zealand.

UC Irvine was well-represented, both as a conference Silver Sponsor, and with approximately 15 faculty members and students in attendance.

MicroTAS 2017 included a Shark Tank competition, a graduate student mixer and a women faculty mixer, and a plenary interview with Harvard microfluidics pioneer George Whitesides. Biomedical engineering professor Michelle Khine chaired and moderated the Shark Tank competition, which featured 26 teams presenting their pitches to four judges with entrepreneurship experience. One of Khine’s teams was among the seven finalists.

“The conference was a huge success,” said Lee, the William J. Link Professor of Biomedical Engineering. “Many companies are starting to pay attention to this field and they have a larger and larger presence each year.”

Lee added that the conference banquet took place aboard the Georgia Queen Riverboat on the Savannah River. “It was a blast as the hard-working researchers and scientists sang and danced away the Southern night.”

-Anna Lynn Spitzer