Announcing the Final Examination of Jorge Manrique Castro for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The main objective of the research in this dissertation is to take advantage of unique materials, innovative designs, novel microfabrication techniques, and specialized characterization tools to develop a set of BioMEMS devices and systems further validated with electrical, interface, geometric, and multiphysics models to address unique biological problems emanating from ethical treatment of animals in drug discovery, biological translation, decentralization and personalization of healthcare. This set of devices is designed to interface with multi-sized biological constructs such as 3D cellular networks, viruses, and proteins. The first objective explored a 3D printing-based microfabrication technology to create 2.5D/3D microelectrodes to interface with cellular constructs such as tissues and organoids. Investigations were carried out on how surface roughness and printing parameters play a critical role in the electrical response of the system for in-vitro applications. Three different metallization strategies were investigated and modeled in order to define novel self-insulated 2.5 and 3D microelectrodes. The second objective centered around virus and microparticle detection using a novel combination of microfluidics and Wi-Fi optical detection. Microfluidics were created designing a multilayered system and processing various polymeric materials. The optical system was able to detect and wirelessly transmit information about the presence of viruses including COVID-19 Delta strain and microparticles in the 5 to 10 microns size. The last objective of the dissertation presented the microfabrication of a BioMEMS platform for electrophysiological characterization of Actin protein (smallest entity within the size spectrum). This platform combined interdigitated electrodes,
PDMS soft lithography, and impedance and interface modeling to better understand Actin protein dynamics in bundles. This dissertation proposes innovative ideas to the current state of the art for emerging paradigms in the medical technology field involving rapid sensing and manipulating biological entities at various size scales: (proteins, DNA/RNA), (pathogens, virus), and (organoids, spheroids, assembloids).
Committee in Charge:
Swaminathan Rajaraman, Chair, MSE
Reza Abdolvand, ECE
Kalpathy Sundaram, ECE
Brian Kim, ECE
Kristopher Davis, MSE
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