Hayes Lab
The Hayes lab is involved in fundamental research utilizing microfluidics and separation science to enable breakthrough advances in multiple fields.
E Coli collecting in dielectrophoresis device
Image: Paul Jones
Higher order electric field moments interacting with external field. (see Hayes 2020)
Particles collecting by negative and positive dielectrophoresis (see Hilton et al. 2020)
Diagnostics:
You are feeling sick. What's the problem?
We are pioneering completely new ways to find out what is wrong with you; letting us tell you the best possible treatment.
We are at our core a micro/nanofluidic lab focused on bioanalytics and fundamental interaction of electric field with biological particles (cells, organelles, viruses, exosomes, complexes, proteins, etc.), and we are pretty obsessive about it. One of the outcomes of this work is the ability to differentiate these particles to unprecedented levels—1000s of times better than previous capabilities. And differentiating these bioparticles, in the end of the day, is the basis for diagnostics. We are examining, a foundational level what the impact is from gaining far more information—many more diagnostics measurements (time, space & targeted entity)—on your care and use of treatment options. We will be a powerful ‘front end’ on the AI revolution nucleating as I write.
The other crazy thing about this technology is that is incredibly inexpensive and robust: a piece of plastic, a cell phone and a battery. The science is quite complicated, but when fully developed, the operation will be simple. Because the these systems will be cheap and tough they can be distributed and stored without fussing and worrying about getting too hot or too cold or sitting around for years in a warehouse. They can be applied to low resource settings, broad population screening (for the next ‘COVID’ for example), space exploration, and other extreme environments.
We have been at this for a long time and things are now really exploding, moving fast. We have a bunch of fundamental questions about how particle-solvent-electric field systems act which have direct impact on clinical outcomes. Its amazing to hear some of the far-ranging conversations around our lab.
