‘Technology development is a key ingredient for advancing biomedical research, including pre-symptomatic and molecular diagnosis of disease. Biosensors and physics-based tools are needed to quantitate levels of biomolecules and flux in individual cells and in samples containing mixtures of biological constituents. Engineering and materials science approaches may provide useful methods to build interfaces with biological systems.’ (NIH/NIGMS “Visions of the Future”)
Single-Cell Biology Tools to Advance Biology & Medicine
Unlocking deeper understanding of biological systems has benefitted tremendously from the ability to measure biomolecular signals of cellular decision making, with single-cell resolution. Transformative advances in genomics and transcriptomics tools with cellular resolution have revolutionized the biological sciences and biomedicine. Importantly, direct measurement of protein expression and state at the cellular and sub-cellular level is needed to complete our understanding of cell state & function. Our aim is to bring the power of single-cell understanding to proteomics (targeted & discovery) by leveraging the precision of microfluidic design.
Same-Cell Biology Tools to Boost Future of Science
Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning mean that biomedical researchers — and even practicing clinicians — will soon be able to access the synthesis of human laboratory-derived knowledge by querying generative AI models of biology & medicine. Robust, low-noise training sets are needed to underpin the accuracy and efficacy of those models. Quantitative, high throughput cellular analysis tools are more critical than ever for testing generative hypotheses. Bespoke measurements of molecular and cellular function are required to tune models to specific frameworks not possible with the largest, general data sets. We aim to invent tools and generate cellular data sets to power this remarkable transition in biology and medicine.
The Physics & Chemistry of Microfluidic Design
Large-scale study of protein structure, function, and expression (proteomics) is instrumental to molecular biomarker discovery. Due to the constantly changing nature of protein expression and state, these profiles are notoriously difficult to study. High-resolution analytical assays such as two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry have proven essential to proteomics; nevertheless, these information-rich methods can be slow and labor intensive. With these considerations in mind, our group is developing techniques, implemented via microfluidic technologies, as a means to achieve a rapid, yet still quantitative, assessment of protein expression & state variations in complex samples.