Current Research
Current Projects
Early Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) -
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death in the US and worldwide. According to CDC, in 2020, there were about 690,000 CVD related deaths in the US, and WHO reported about 9 million deaths worldwide. According to the American Heart Association, nearly half of the adults in the US have some form of heart disease. Early diagnosis of CVD will prevent many deaths and serious impacts on human health. Though there are CVD diagnostic tests available, they are limited by selectivity and sensitivity at very early stages. To address these limitations, we are exploring developing microspheres and microfluidic based new methods to detect CVD at a very early stage.
Separation and Detection of Microplastics -
The contamination of aquatic systems with microplastics is becoming a severe threat to living organisms. Microplastics found in the environment consist of a wide range of particle sizes thus give rise to several challenges to current purification methods. Acoustic focusing has been utilized as a particle concentrating method in biological and non-biological applications. We investigate the feasibility of using acoustic focusing technology to isolate microplastics in aqueous samples. We also explore secondary effects like the adsorption of heavy metals onto MPs and the degradation effects of MPs on human health and the environment. Further, we are interested in developing new MP detection methods.
Acoustic Fluid Relocation for Bio-particle Detection -
Simple and rapid detection of viruses gained huge attention since the COVID-19 pandemic. Microfluidic systems are advantageous for detecting infectious viruses due to the requirement of small sample volumes and high-throughput results. Droplet microfluidics and antigen-based microfluidics are the widely used microfluidic approaches for detecting viruses. Even though these approaches are accurate and sensitive, it is hard to integrate them with other systems to simplify and automate the detection. Therefore, exploring simpler microfluidic approaches to perform reactions and detect sub-micron particles will broaden the use of microfluidics to detect particles such as viruses. We are currently investigating how we can utilize our patented technology on particle separation for bioparticle detection.
