The past three decades have seen considerable progress in the development of microscale systems for use in the chemical and biological sciences. This has been driven by concomitant advances in the areas of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, high-throughput screening and diagnostics, with a clearly defined need to perform rapid measurements on small sample volumes. I will describe how simple microfluidic tools can be used to create powerful diagnostic technologies for use in both the developed and developing world. First, I will present microfluidic platforms for imaging flow cytometry. Such systems leverage elasto-inertial microfluidics and stroboscopic illumination to allow for high-resolution imaging of cells at throughputs approaching half a million cells per second using bodily fluids. In addition, I will describe how paper-based microfluidic systems can be used to perform sensitive and rapid nucleic acid tests at the point-of-care.

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Bio

Andrew is currently Professor of Biochemical Engineering in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich. Prior to his arrival in Zurich, he was Professor of Chemical Nanosciences at Imperial College London. He obtained a 1st Class Degree in Chemistry and PhD in Molecular Photophysics from Imperial College London in 1995 and subsequently held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests cover a broad range of activities in the general area of microfluidics and nanoscale science. Andrew has given over 350 invited lectures at conferences and universities in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia (including 80 plenary or keynote lectures), has published 375 papers in refereed journals, and co-authored two books. He is currently an Associate editor for ACS Sensors and sits on the Editorial Boards of Advanced Materials Technologies, Chem and Molecular Systems Design & Engineering. He is also co-founder of two spin out companies that commercialize microfluidic technologies. Science originating from the deMello group has been recognized through multiple awards, including the 2002 SAC Silver Medal (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2009 Clifford Paterson Medal (Royal Society), the 2009 Corday Morgan Medal (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2012 Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2020 Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship Award (American Chemical Society), the 2021 Simon-Widmer Award (Swiss Chemical Society) and a 2021 Mendel Lectureship (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).