Special Seminar: “Flowing Towards Precision Medicine: Harnessing Acoustofluidics for Biomedical Advancements”

Abstract:

Acoustic waves not only propagate motion throughout a medium but also induce direct force on objects inside the medium, allowing for non-contact small object manipulation. Among the various manipulation techniques, acoustic tweezers are notable for their contactless, noninvasive, and biocompatible nature, making them suitable for a wide range of applications in biology, material science, and chemistry. In the handling of small bio-related objects like nanoparticles, cells, droplets, and zebrafish larvae, the natural combination of acoustics and fluid dynamics arises due to the primarily liquid environment. This combination, known as acoustofluidics, has opened up numerous new interdisciplinary research directions and techniques. Acoustofluidic devices are uniquely advantageous, being compact, versatile, and compatible with a variety of lab-on-chip components, holding the potential of being expanded to comprehensive systems. Despite the fast-advancing path and promising applications, much of its potential remains unexplored. In this talk, I will present my recent research on novel acoustofluidic device designs for manipulating objects of varying scales. Furthermore, I will explore the vast potential of integrated acoustofluidic systems in the field of biomedical research, including their applications in drug/chemical screening, disease modeling, and diagnosis.

Bio:

Dr. Chuyi Chen is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Professor Scott Manalis in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her postdoc work is mainly on developing a chemostat platform that maintains physiologically relevant chemical gradients to study pathogen-induced colorectal cancer metastatic transformation and personalized medicine. Before joining MIT, Dr. Chen earned her Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University in 2021. Her dissertation mainly focuses on developing engineering platforms that apply acoustics-induced fluid motions to a broad range of applications in the field of biology, biomedicine, and material sciences. Prior to her doctoral work, Dr. Chen received her M.S. degree in Physics and B.S. degree in Electronic Science and Engineering from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, in 2016 and 2013. Her research interests include fluid dynamics, microfluidics, acoustics, acoustofluidics, system control, and biomedical micro/nano systems. She is a recipient of the 2023 Ludwig Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Ludwig Center at MIT.