Start
Sep 29, 2016 - 17:00
End
Sep 29, 2016 - 18:00
Venue
Room 118 Chemical Engineering
Event Type
Speaker
Prof. Debjani Paul IIT Bombay
Title
Microfluidic devices for healthcare applications.
Abstract: There is a strong need for affordable and accurate disease detection in developing countries in order to provide good quality healthcare to the population. Microfluidics can help in miniaturizing diagnostic platforms so that these can be transported directly to the patient’s bedside (i.e. at the point-of-care) from clinical laboratories. In this talk I will speak about a mobile phone microscope and a microfluidic platform developed by us to detect sickle cell disease an inherited disorder affecting the hemoglobin in red blood cells. Bio: Debjani Paul obtained a Ph.D. in Physics (2005) from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. She did her first postdoc in Curie Institute Paris (2005-2007) where she developed new microfabrication techniques. During her next postdoc in University of Cambridge (2007-2011) Debjani explored electrical biosensing techniques and studied the biophysical mechanisms of phagocytosis in macrophages. Her research group in IIT Bombay uses microfluidic technology to build diagnostic platforms. Some of the ongoing projects in her lab are: (1) developing a paperfluidic chip for tuberculosis screening in low-resource settings (2) detection of sickle cells in blood and (3) developing a clogging-free microfluidic cell sorter. The projects are funded by IIT Bombay Department of Biotechnology (IYBA) Centre for Nanoelectronics Phase 2 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Tata Centre for Technology and Design and Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering.Note: Attendance is mandatory for those enrolled in CL 702.