We have a range of undergraduate research projects in the Biofluidics Lab, from instrument development to statistical analysis of cell locomotion.  Undergraduate researchers have always played significant roles in the lab. All our undergraduate researchers have had at least one publication in internationally known and  peer reviewed journal  as a result of their work in the lab. In addition, all our undergraduate researchers have won on campus and off campus undergraduate research fellowships, these include NSF graduate research fellowship, NBTC undergraduate research fellowship, and LIEF fellowship. Team work is highly encouraged in our lab, and all the undergraduate students work closely with either a postdoc or  a graduate student or a professor. We encourage students to work part time (10 hrs per week) on the  project during the semester for course credit, and full time over the summer with a stipend or a fellowship.

Current projects that need an undergraduate research student:

1. Development of a 4D micro/nano scale particle  tracking microscope
Swimming E.coli (See movie) cell is an incredible nanobiomachine made by nature. Seen in the movie, each bacterium  is about  1 micronmeter in diameter and a few micronmeters in length.  The nano-motors  situated at the membrane of the cell drives the propellers (fillagela, thin filamentary flexible rods), and in turn drive the bacterium to move. Each bacterium  can swim up to 10 times of its body length in one second. In this project, the student will be involved in the development of a computer software that translates the movie of swimming E.coli into (x,y,z,t) coordinates, and then connects these coordinates into bacterial trajectories.

Skills involved: Programming in MatLab, C/C++, geometric optics. 

2. Tracking protein dynamics in a living cell
This work is in collaboration with Prof. DeLisa and  Prof. Clancy in CBE

Skills involved: Cloning, cell culture, and programming in MatLab.

3. Tracking bacterial social behavior
This work is in collaboration with Prof. DeLisa, Prof. Koch in CBE and Dr. Yuhai Tu at IBM research center

Skills involved: Cell culture, chemotaxis, fluid mechanics  and image processing.

4. Studies of  the  invasiveness of Leukemia Cancer cells  using a microfluidic device
This work is in collaboration with Prof. Yen and Dr. Gudrun in the Biomedical Sciences department at Cornell University

Skills involved: Microfluidic device, cell culture, microscopy.




Update 08/24/06