Lee Wins Outstanding Paper Award

Abraham Lee and his research group have been awarded a 2020 Outstanding Paper Award by Springer Nature. Steve Zylius / UCI

August 26, 2020 – Abraham Lee, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics, and his research group have been awarded a 2020 Outstanding Paper Award by Springer Nature.

The paper, titled “Whole-Blood Sorting, Enrichment, and In-situ Immunolabeling of Cellular Subsets using Acoustic Microstreaming,” by Neha Garg, Trisha M. Westerhof, Vick Liu, Robin Liu, Edward L. Nelson, and Lee, was published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering in 2018. 

The research, co-funded by CADMIM, focuses on a microfluidic device that is powered by acoustic energy and can process whole blood while looking at its components with a holistic view. The design of the microfluidic device enables the production of acoustic microstreaming vortices that selectively trap blood cells based on size, and can separate them into different outlets for collection. The technology can be used for separation of plasma for immunoassays, which we are being developed for infectious diseases such as dengue virus and coronavirus. The technology can also separate out white blood cells in order to monitor immune responses of patient treatments and assess cancer cells.

“This article reports on an intentional effort in my lab to shift more toward real human patient samples instead of pre-processed samples,” said Lee. “The goal is to develop devices that can be used at the point-of-care, providing rapid diagnostics.”

The authors will be presented with an award certificate and prize by Springer Nature and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

– Megan Lohre