Micro- and Nanofliudics for Bioanalytical Systems Event

Abstract:

Electrokinetic based micro- and nanofluidic technologies provide revolutionary opportunities to separate, identify and analyze biomolecular species. The coupled physics unique to nanofluidic systems allows for separations based on different analyte properties, including charge, size, conformation, hydrophobicity, and mass. Coupled with optical or electronic detection technologies, such systems allow for great opportunities the field of biomolecular analysis, providing separation, identification, and detection of biomolecules with superior speed, sensitivity, selectivity and quantitation. In this work, we will discuss studies in our lab towards the practical development of micro- and nanofluidic biosensors, namely, the characterization of gold nanorods via microfluidic capillary electrophoresis, the characterization of AgDNA nanoclusters, separation of short (10-50bp) ss and dsDNA in nano- and microfluidic channels, non-equilibrium protein kinetics in a microfluidic system, a unique nanoscale preconcentration method based on field amplified sample stacking (FASS), and a fabrication technique to allow for the integration of electrodes in nanofluidic channels.

Sumita Pennathur began teaching at UCSB in the Mechanical Engineering department in July 2007. Her research group focuses on using fundamental fluidics knowledge at both micro- and nano -scales to create novel devices for practical applications. Major efforts include creating and developing enabling tools to identify and characterize biological substances, improving current bionalaytical devices, and designing/engineering entire systems for point-of-care usage. Prior to coming to UCSB, Pennathur did postdoctoral work at the University of Twente, and Sandia National Labortories, after a phD from Stanford and B.S./M.S. from MIT. Since arriving at UCSB, she has written over a dozen journal publications, won the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the UC Junior Regents Faculty Fellowship, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) award.