Math-Sci Seminar

Speaker: Assistant Professor Hür Koser, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, USA

Title: Magnetic Liquids for Lab-on-a-Chip and Rapid Diagnostics Applications
        (ATTENTION TO UNUSUAL TIME, DAY AND PLACE)

Date: Fri 17 Nov, 2006
Time: 11:00-11:55
Place: Science Building, Room Z42

Abstract:

Ferrofluids are stable colloidal suspensions of nanosize
ferromagnetic particles in either aqueous or oil-based media. They
have found their way into a variety of applications, such as
sealing, damping and blood separation; in dilute, functionalized
forms, they have also been used as drug delivery and MRI contrast
agents. These complex liquids offer attractive alternatives to
moving mechanical components in miniaturized cooling, pumping and
integrated micro-total-analysis-systems for chip-scale chemistry and
biology. Water-based ferrofluids can also be made bio-compatible,
rendering them useful in novel cell manipulation and sorting
schemes. We have recently proposed, modeled and experimentally
confirmed that ferrofluids can be actuated and pumped in closed-loop
geometries, even within geometries of micro-scale devices. The
pumping dynamics depend on the average nanoparticle size within the
ferrofluid. If particles are functionalized with a receptor
molecule, the entire volume of the ferrofluid becomes a pathogen
sensor that can detect minute quantities of target antigens
efficiently and effectively. We are working on creating portable,
disposable, cheap and miniaturized sensor and diagnostic devices
based on this dynamic effect. We also briefly report on the
development of a novel, ferrofluid-based assay to study a large
quantity of ligand-receptor interactions quickly and simultaneously,
without the need for any wash cycles.

Please visit http://home.ku.edu.tr/~sci-math for a schedule of
upcoming Science -Math seminars at Koc University.