Speaker: Dr. Xu Hou
Date&Time: 19:00-21:00 p.m., October 12
Venue: G, 3F Conference room
Abstract:
Nature provides a huge range of biological materials with various smart functions over millions of years of evolution, and serves as a big source of bio-inspiration for biomimetic materials. Advances in microfluidics are revolutionizing many disciplines, such as molecular biology, drug discovery, medical diagnostics, and materials science. Despite their significance and over three decades of research, the fouling of microfluidic networks when components from fluids irreversibly adhere to channel surfaces, remains a challenging and unresolved issue. Various strategies have been proposed to prevent surface fouling, such as using low surface energy materials to fabricate the microfluidic channels or chemical modification of material surfaces, but these approaches have not effectively resolved the problem. To address the challenge, here we report a new strategy to create universal antifouling microfluidic networks that show an outstanding inertness to various chemicals and organic solvents, resist adhesion from particles and proteins to complex fluids such as whole blood. Our approach—inspired by natural tubular organs—could provide a platform for many applications of microchannel systems and accelerate the development of high-performance microfluidic devices.
Biography:
Dr. Xu Hou is currently the Research Associate at School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University under the direction of Prof. Aizenberg. He received his B.S. degree (2006) from Sichuan University, China. His scientific interest was materials of tissue engineering. He completed his Ph.D. (2011) at National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China under the direction of Prof. Lei Jiang. His scientific interests were focused on the design and fabrication of biomimetic micro/nanochannels. His current researches focus on bio-inspired microfluidics. As a researcher, Xu has published 27 research papers (Google scholar 2015 Total cited >1350, Total IF>320, H-index:17), such as Nature, Chem. Soc. Rev., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater., ACS Nano, Chem. Commun., Adv. Funct. Mater., and Small, etc, and highlight by Nature, Nature China, etc. In 2013, he published his first academic book at Springer for recognition of outstanding PhD research and got the Springer Theses Prize. In 2014, he received the Harvard Postdoctoral Award for Professional Development, in honor of excellence and achievement in academic research. He has been awarded 2014 SciFinder Future Leader in Chemistry Program of the American Chemical Society.
