“Our CADMIM membership is pivotal in building a network with world leading experts in microfluidics. CADMIM enabled us to conduct research projects at the transition from basic research to industrial application expanding our capabilities far beyond internal expertise. Combined with the focus on manufacturability the center offers a unique set of expertise and opportunities.”
– Dr. Frank Narz, Director R&D Scientific Applications, QIAGEN GmbH

“CADMIM offers a unique blend of university research from leading researchers in the field supported by leading providers of microfluidic manufacture and development. For the industrial members of CADMIM, who are interested in new product opportunities, this means novel IP is quickly reduced to practice for real world applications.”
– Dr. Leanna Levine, Founder, President and CEO, ALine, Inc.

“With tight research budgets, CADMIM offers an opportunity to leverage industrial investments. We’ve been able to guide world-class research in microfluidics toward challenges in technology development that are barriers to transition. Working in partnership with other members of the industrial advisory board has also brought valuable insight to our programs.”
– Dr. Laura Rea, Program Manager, Soft Matter Materials Branch, Air Force Research Laboratory

Sanofi Joins CADMIM
Welcome to our newest member of the CADMIM Industrial Advisory Board: Sanofi. Established in 1973, Sanofi S.A. is a global pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. US is comprised of 4 business units: Specialty Care, Vaccines, General Medicines, and Consumer Healthcare. We look forward to working with our colleagues at Sanofi R&D North America. Corporate website: https://www.sanofi.us/ 

CADMIM REM Research Participants Present Posters at ERN
The Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), was held in Washington, D.C. March 14-16th, 2024. Six CADMIM Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) program interns, funded by NSF through the center, presented posters at this national conference, attended by over 2,000 people. They started their work in Summer 2023, continuing through the following fall and winter, and culminating in the trip to Washington, D.C.

Kudos to the 6 research participants: Sarah Meadows from Santiago Canyon College, Ogochukwu Ozonevo and Marcus Mallabo from California State University Long Beach, Ron Nguyen and Bryan Orozco from UCI, and Kayla Hui from University High School. Also, many thanks to the UCI graduate student mentors and PIs: Mohammad Aghaamoo, Karen Lopez, Francesco Palomba, Chung Thai, Abe Lee (CADMIM Director), Elliot Hui (CADMIM Core Faculty), and Michelle Digman (CADMIM Core Faculty)

ERN website for more info: https://emerging-researchers.org/

Successful Spring CADMIM IAB Meeting
Many thanks to everyone who attended the Spring 2024 CADMIM IAB meeting! Great to see so many of you in person at the University of California, Irvine and reconnect with those who participated online. Also many thanks to all the students and post-docs who prepared posters. Congratulations to the new leaders of the CADMIM Industrial Advisory Board (IAB). For the 2024 – 2025 term Hena Guo, Program Lead at Corteva Agriscience, will serve as IAB Chair, and Zheng Xia, Instrument Engineering Manager at Genus PLC, will serve as IAB Vice-Chair. We really appreciate and look forward to your guidance and leadership at the center this year. More photos from this event here: February 2024 meeting photos

CADMIM at Oracle Health Innovation Summit
Dr. Ian Papautsky (CADMIM Co-Director, UIC) and Dr. Gisela Lin (CADMIM Deputy Director, UCI) travelled to Kansas City, MO for Oracle’s Health Innovation Summit December 6 – 7, 2023. This event, hosted by Oracle Health, was a great opportunity to interact with representatives from Oracle at all levels and many other key players in the health/clinical data space. CADMIM was one of 30 information tables, where visitors learned about our expertise in microfluidics and our new efforts to add research thrusts in biophotonics and AI/ML. More info about Oracle Health: https://www.oracle.com/health/

Salman Khetani Receives COM Faculty of the Year Award
On November 14, 2023 Dr. Salman Khetani, CADMIM Core Faculty, received the University of Illinois College of Medicine Departmental Faculty of the Year award. The College of Medicine has campuses in Chicago, Peoria, and Rockford. Recipients of this award are nominated by their department heads and have demonstrated outstanding contributions and achievement in at least one of three areas: teaching, research, or service. Dr. Khetani was presented this award by G. Stephen Irwin Executive Dean Mark Rosenblatt, MD, PhD, MBA, MHA, and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs Pauline Maki, PhD, at the annual Faculty Recognition Awards Ceremony. He was also congratulated by UIC BME Department Head, Dr. Tom Royston. Way to go, Salman! List of 2023 recipients: Link to list

UIC Visit to Genus PLC
Members of the research groups of Dr. Ian Papautsky (CADMIM Co-Director) and Dr. Zhangli Peng (CADMIM Core Faculty) gathered in person in November at Genus IntelliGen Technologies, a unit of Genus PLC (CADMIM IAB member) in Windsor, Wisconsin. These groups are collaborating on CADMIM project Y9-009: “Numerical and Experimental Investigations of Asymmetric Cell Positioning in Inertial Flows.”  Graduate student Moein Naderi in the Peng Lab is also doing an internship at Genus, funded by the NSF INTERN program. 

For more information on the NSF INTERN program: www.nsf.gov/INTERN
For more information about Genus PLC: https://www.genusplc.com/

UCI Engineering School Dean’s Visit to CADMIM
At the end of October 2023, Dr. Magnus Egerstedt, Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering at UCI, came to visit CADMIM to learn more about our center. We took him through the laboratories of Dr. Abe Lee (CADMIM Director), Dr. Elliot Hui, Dr. Jered Haun, and Dr. Michelle Digman (all CADMIM Core faculty) in a whirlwind tour, ending with a short group discussion about our future directions. He was impressed with our technologies and, more importantly, our students and post-docs! 

CADMIM at MicroTAS 2023
The 27th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (MicroTAS 2023), was held in Katowice, Poland, October 15 – 19, 2023. CADMIM Co-Director, Dr. Ian Papautsky gave a keynote presentation on Monday, Oct. 16, titled “Blood Microfluidics: From Fractionation to Liquid Biopsy.” Also, CADMIM-funded work by Braulio Cardenas-Benitez, Xuhao Luo, Erin Rhee, Shehreen T. Hassan, Richard Hurtado, Abigail F. Howe, and Abe Lee (CADMIM Director) was selected for oral presentation. Their presentation was titled “3-dimensional Isotropic Imaging of Live Suspension Cells Based on Droplet Microvortices.” Saw many old friends – so nice to catch up with everyone, as well as meet new people. 

CADMIM on UIDP Panel
In October, Dr. Gisela Lin, CADMIM Deputy Director, served as a panelist for an Industry-University collaboration session titled “The Future of Academic-Industry Consortia” at UIDP Irvine 2023, held at UCI Beall Applied Innovation. This multi-day event concluded with a tour of Alteryx Global Headquarters, a leading data science and analytics software company in Irvine, CA. This tour was also attended by Mr. Avi Mayerhoff, Associate Director of Corporate Partnerships in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Innovation at UIC.

UIDP is a recognized leader in addressing issues impacting academic-corporate collaboration, providing a unique forum for our member representatives to find better ways to partner. Both sites of CADMIM (UCI and UIC) are members of UIDP. UIDP website for more information and future events: https://uidp.org/

(Photo credit = Jing Wang, BAI)

UIC-Genus International Patent Application Published
Congratulations to the Papautsky Group at University of Illinois, Chicago and Genus PLC (CADMIM IAB member). Their international patent application (PCT) WO2023177528A1, titled “Microfluidic System and Method,” was published September 21, 2023. Inventors: Hua Gao, Jian Zhou, Ian Papautsky (CADMIM Co-director), and Gopakumar Kamalakshakurup (formerly with Genus PLC). This PCT was derived from CADMIM project Y7-003: “Precise Cellular Alignment and Positioning in Viscoelastic-Inertial Flows.” Access it here: Patent

CADMIM Ph.D. Graduates
Congratulations to Mengren Wu (Jie Xu’s lab) and Qiyue Luan (Ian Papautsky’s lab)! Both graduated with PhDs from University of Illinois. Chicago, and contributed to various projects at CADMIM.

2 UCI Undergraduate Students Receive REU Awards
Two Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) supplements were awarded to the University of California, Irvine. Michelle Chau (Lee Lab) is working on a project titled “Physiological Artificial Antigen Presenting Cells.” Bryan Orozco (Digman Lab) is working on a project titled “Rac1-Mediated Remodeling: A Metabolic Expression of MCF10A and MDA-MB-231 Breast Cancer Cells.” Congratulations to both!

Journal Publications from CADMIM Research Groups

• Sara Cardona, Nima Mostafazadeh, Qiyue Luan, Jian Zhou, Zhangli Peng, Ian Papautsky, “Numerical Modeling of Physical Cell Trapping in Microfluidic Chips,” Micromachines, 14(9), 1665, August 2023. Access paper: Publication
• Ruoyu Jiang, Yu Hsi (Joy) Chen, Ritesh Parajuli, Anshu Agrawal, Abe Lee, “3D Centrifugation-enabled Priming of Synaptic Activation Promotes Primary T Cell Expansion” Advanced Therapeutics, Research Article, No .202300224R1, September 26, 2023. Access paper: Publication
• Celine Macaraniag, Jian Zhou, Jing Li, William Putzbach, Nissim Hay, and Ian Papautsky, “Microfluidic isolation of breast cancer circulating tumor cells from microvolumes of mouse blood,” Electrophoresis, August 2023. Access paper: Publication
• Mohammad Aghaamoo, Braulio Cardenas-Benitez, Abraham P. Lee, “A high-throughput microfluidic cell sorter using a three-dimensional coupled hydrodynamic-dielectrophoretic pre-focusing module,” Micromachines, 14(10), 1813, September 2023. Access paper: Publication

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