Please give a lot of attention and participation from the members of the Mechanical Engineering department.

▣ Title: The engineered microenvironment for a biological system

▣ Speaker: 문혜란 박사

▣ Affiliation: Purdue University

▣ Date: 2023. 1. 6.(Fri) 14:00

▣ Venue: 제1공학관 A690호

▣ Host: 김영주 교수

▣ Abstract

Microfluidics is a technology that manipulates microscale fluid flow through microchannels. It allows precise flow control with easy access, providing new ways to create an actual living organism-like environment on the microscale. My research applies microfluidics to exploring biophysical mechanisms as the engineered platform, particularly cancer progression. A tumor microenvironment is highly complex, comprising multiple extracellular compartments and various types of cells. The complexity has been a critical barrier to elucidating important biological implications and drug delivery.

In this talk, I will introduce the development of engineered tumor microenvironment platforms demonstrating coexisting and interacting fluid flow, extracellular matrices, growth factor proteins, and various types of cells using microfluidics and living materials. In my research, engineered microfluidic platforms were designed for flow controls that integrate with chemicals perfusing through hydrogel materials and with moving cells that show non-linearity in chemical transport. The cellular response to the engineered microenvironment was analyzed and addressed using biophysical models and molecular biological perspectives. In addition, effective disease models and screening platforms that mimic hydraulic conditions and dynamic drug transport in the tumor microenvironment will be introduced, evaluating cancer-selective intracellular transport and the actions of cancer-targeted drug candidates.