Access to the Facility

Individuals can access the facility by following the procedures outlined in the "How Do I Become a User and How Much Does It Cost?" (pdf)  document.  You will need to read the the "Lab Safety Manual"  (pdf) and sign "Certification Form" (pdf).

Faculty and Research

Nitish Thakor (Biomedical Engineering and Whitaker Institute)

Prof. Thakor is interested in developing micro and nanotechnologies for medical sensors and instrumentation. His primary medical focus is developing the technology for neuroscience research and studying basic brain diseases and disorders using micro and nanotechnologies. Under the sponsorship of the National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke, he is currently developing a carbon microsensor and a related carbon nanosensor for detection of neurotransmitters from brain cells and tissue.  The sensor is interfaced to a custom designed very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit potentiostat chip to provide the interface and digital conversion.  His laboratory has also developed a microelectrode mechanisms for recording from brain slices and brain tissue. A novel recording technique that will allow simultaneous electrical and chemical activity from brain as well as optical imaging is under development under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. Finally, a new initiative has been undertaken to develop electronic interfaces to neurons and neural networks.  The idea is to develop programmable neural networks so that the neurons can be patterned in a desirable fashion and with a programmed interface for recording and stimulation. A new technology has been proposed to genetically engineer the neurons and the neural network to achieve desirable gene activated function, such as synaptic control.

Leslie Tung (Biomedical Engineering and Whitaker Institute)

Photolithographic, micro-contact printing, and micro-abrasion techniques are employed to place predefined patterns of extracellular matrix proteins or topological features onto cover slips that serve to guide the growth and spread of cardiac cells in culture. Dr. Tung creates engineered monolayers of neonatal rat cardiac cells containing up to several hundred thousand cells, so that their integrated, functional electrophysiology can be studied using optical mapping techniques.

Christopher Chen  (Biomedical Engineering and Whitaker Institute)

Prof.  Chen investigates mechanisms to integrate solid-state devices and living cells for medical, environmental, and defense applications.  Such integration relies on an appreciation for how to control and monitor cells with such devices.  The microfabrication facility plays a critical role in his work by enabling to fabricate the many types of model surfaces needed in these studies.

Andre Levchenko (Whitaker Institute and Biomedical Engineering)

Prof.  Levchenko’s lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms of intracellular signal transduction and cell-cell communication. In particular, lab members are involved in building and experimentally validating the models of how bacterial cells interact (“quorum sensing”), how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to gradients and how a cell decides between survival and suicide. All these problems are addressed with currently established microfluidics based set-up utilizing microfabricated PDMS chips.

William Sharpe (Mechanical Engineering)

Prof. Sharpe measures the mechanical properties of materials used in MEMS. Tensile specimens as small as 1 micron thick and 50 microns wide can be tested using specialized techniques developed over the past several years. Stress-strain curves, high temperature behavior, and fatigue lifetimes can be measured.

Jeff Wang (Mechanical Engineering and Whitaker Institute)

Prof. Wang’s research interests include designs of micro/nano scale fluidic process and force fields for molecular manipulation, single molecule detection, and experimental molecular dynamics. His laboratory seeks to apply the technologies both for quick and ultra-sensitive identification of biosignatures and for high-resolution study of molecular interaction process.

Andreas G. Andreou (Electrical and Computer Engineering and Whitaker Institute)

Prof. Andreou's  research program examines  the  relationship between information, and its physical representation  in both biological and in human engineered information processing systems. We study new ways of transforming and communicating information that exploit physical properties of the underlying technologies; from integrated circuit design principles that rely on the non-linear characteristics of CMOS devices, to optoelectronic microstructure architectures employing silicon on sapphire CMOS circuits, to micromechanical filters for acoustic processing. Our laboratory has also developed hybrid microsystems for bio-sensing and polarization imaging.

David Gracias  (Chemical Engineering)

Prof Gracias's research interests lie in the areas of Micro / Nanotechnology, Self-assembly, Surface Science and Polymer Materials (including biomaterials) Science. More specifically, the group is attempting to combine attributes of organic (biological systems) and inorganic systems (silicon based microtechnology) to build new bioinspired, (micro and nano scale) electronic and mechanical materials and devices. The group is also interested in understanding and manipulating properties of materials and surfaces on the nanometer length scale.

Education

Two courses are offered for students that are interested in working in the laboratory. The first two are advanced introductory courses and the third course is project oriented.