Naturapolyceutics defines the emerging science and technology platform that blends natural polymers and pharmaceutics for the design and development of drug delivery systems. Natural polymers due to their biological properties, sustainability, chemical flexibility, human and eco-friendliness are promising in this field. As drug delivery advances, there will be need for more polymers. Given that...

The stem cell microenvironment is influenced by several factors including cell-media, cell-cell, and cell-matrix interactions. Although conventional cell-culture techniques have been successful, they offer poor control of the cellular microenvironment. To enhance traditional techniques, we have designed a microscale system to perform parallel cell culture on a chip while controlling the microen...

Microfabrication advances have resulted in small, cheap, and precise devices for biological microelectromechanical systems (bioMEMS). SU-8/SU-8 2000 is an attractive material for these applications because of its high-aspect ratio fabrication capability, dielectric properties, and thermochemical stability. Despite these advantages, the potential toxicity of SU-8 2000 may limit its use in cell-b...

In the last decade, examples of devices manufactured with SUMMiT technology have demonstrated the capabilities of polysilicon surface micromachining [1]. Currently we are working on enhancements to this technology that utilize additional structural layers of silicon nitride to enable Microfluidics and BioMEMS applications. The addition of the silicon nitride layers allows the fabrication of mic...

Polymer microstructures are incorporated in biomicroelectromechanical system (BioMEMS) devices with applications ranging from drug creening to defense applications. Nanomechanical characterization of the polymer components must be carried out in order to design reliable evices. This paper presents the nanoindentation characterization of polymer beams fabricated through soft lithography-based te...

BACKGROUND To date, biological components have been incorporated into MEMS devices to create cell-based sensors and assays, motors and actuators, and pumps. Bio-MEMS technologies present a unique opportunity to study fundamental biological processes at a level unrealized with previous methods. The capability to miniaturize analytical systems enables researchers to perform multiple experiments i...

Short Tandem Repeats (STR) genotyping is a leading tool in forensic DNA analysis. In STR genotyping, alleles in a sample are identified by measuring their lengths to form a genetic profile. Forming a genetic profile is time-consuming and laborintensive. As the technology matures, increasing demand for improved throughput and efficiency is fueling development of automated forensic DNA analysis s...

We present here a combined theoretical and experimental investigation on effective excitation of microcantilever by using photoacoustic waves. The photoacoustic waves arose from a vibrating Al foil induced by an intensity-modulated laser. We demonstrate that, superior to photothermal excitation, this new configuration avoids direct heating of the microcantilever, thus minimizing undesired therm...