Fundamentals and Applications of Microfluidic Compartmentalization
Date
Location
Description
The ability to break up a larger liquid volume into an array of smaller confined volumes that do not chemically communicate is a key enabling technology driving microfluidic innovations. Microfluidics offers a perfect platform to couple spatial confinement with flow to manipulate intermolecular interactions and reaction kinetics of various fluidic systems. Confinement for example allows analysis of single- entities such as single-molecules or single-cells in a massively parallel fashion. This "digitalization" of a sample enables a variety of new molecular assays including digital versions of polymerase chain reaction or other nucleic acid amplification strategies as well as immunoassays. Further, compartmentalization of single-cells enables analysis of single-cell secretions, transcription profiles, and protein expression profiles, opening up new investigations into the heterogeneity at the single-cell level. A variety of microfluidic approaches have been developed to achieve compartmentalization and perform parallel and high-throughput analyses on these single-entities. Both the enabling approaches and applications will be the focus of the proposed workshop.
This workshop aims to provide a singular opportunity for the most prominent researchers in microfluidics to: (a) discuss the most recent development and new aspects of microfluidic compartmentalization research that covers droplet microfluidics, electrowetting, digital PCR, digital ELISA, and microvalves; (b) participate in a panel discussion on the challenges, opportunities, and barriers to R&D effort in microfluidic compartmentalization area; (c) build synergy and initiate collaborations between OIST and world experts; (d) showcase interdisciplinary research activities of OIST, and target potential postdoc and graduate student recruitments. These goals will be accomplished through 4 days of talks and informal discussions.
For program and further information, please visit the workshop website.
Organizers
- Amy Shen (OIST, Japan)
- Takehiko Kitamori (University of Tokyo, Japan)
- Dino Di Carlo (UCLA, USA)
Invited Speakers (to be updated)
- Professor David Weitz (Harvard, USA)
- Professor Rustem Ismagilov (Caltech, USA)
- Professor Abraham Lee (UC-Irvine, USA)
- Professor Amy Herr (UC-Berkeley, USA)
- Professor Polly Fordyce (Stanford, USA)
- Professor Rohit Karnik (MIT, USA)
- Professor Sandro Carrara (EPFL, Switzerland)
- Professor David Cumming (University of Glasgow, UK)
- Professor Sebastian Maerkl (EPFL, Switzerland)
- Professor Charles Baroud (Ecole Polytechnique, France)
- Professor Hiroyuki Noji (University of Tokyo, Japan)
- Professor Haruko Takeyama (Waseda University, Japan)
- Professor Eiichi Tamiya (Osaka University, Japan)
- Professor Hirofumi Shintaku (Kyoto University, Japan)
- Dr. Darren Link (CTO, RainDance Technologies, USA)
Contributed Talks & Poster Session
In addition to the invited talks, the workshop will also showcase a select number of contributed talks and posters from researchers in the early stages of their career – graduate students to postdocs to assistant professors, as part of the main program. Scientists from Japan as well as abroad are encouraged to apply. For the selected abstracts, the workshop will provide economy class, round trip flights from their home institution, accommodation and meals during the period of the conference. Interested researchers are encouraged to apply by submitting an extended CV (limited to three pages) and a one-page abstract to amy.shen@oist.jp
OIST is deeply committed to the advancement of women in science, in Japan and worldwide. Women are strongly encouraged to apply.
Website URL
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