Presentation Title: Microchips for Manipulation of Cells: Applications in Clinical Medicine and Systems Biology

Abstract: Biomedical applications of microfabricated devices is no longer limited to non-living systems as genes-on-a-chip or lab-on-a-chip, recent advances in the understanding of cellular behavior in micro-environments have started to pave the way toward living micro-devices. These emerging devices are expected to become key technologies in the 21st century of medicine with a broad range of applications varying from diagnostic, tissue engineered products, cell-based drug screening tools, and basic molecular biology tools. They will also include multiple cell types and/or genetically engineered cells to investigate complex interactions between cells from different tissues. These sophisticated devices will contain micro-engineered tissue units coupled to each other by complex microfluidic handling network. Microfluidic mixing systems will also precisely regulate the composition and concentration of drugs to be tested. This presentation will briefly review the early historical literature on the use of microtechnologies in cellular systems and then focus on various applications in cancer biology, HIV/AIDS and global health, inflammation, and systems biology. The presentation will primarily focus on interesting transport phenomena at the microscale and how such information can be used for the development of microfluidic systems for diagnostics and other applications.

Biography: Dr. Mehmet Toner is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Toner is also a Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Dr Toner serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Harvard Teaching Hospitals, and Director of the BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center at the MGH. Dr Toner received a Bachelor of Science degree from Istanbul Technical University and a MS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in Mechanical Engineering. Subsequently he completed his PhD degree in Medical Engineering at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 1989. Dr Toner is a member of many national and international professional committees, and serves on the editorial board of many scientific journals. Dr. Toner has served on many national and international panels and review boards, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Sections, National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award panels, NSF Nanoscience panel, NIH Nanotechnology and Tissue Engineering panel, NIH Reparative Medicine Bioengineering Consortium, and several DARPA strategic planning panels. In 1994, he was recognized by the YC Fung Faculty Award in Bioengineering from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In 1995, he received the Whitaker Foundation Special Opportunity Award. In 1997, he won the John F and Virginia B Taplin Faculty Fellow Award given by Harvard and MIT. In 1998, Dr Toner was selected to become a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, AND A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Dr Toner serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of multiple biotechnology and medical device companies, and has been involved in several startup companies. Dr Toner's research interests include biostabilization, tissue engineering, and microsystems bioengineering. He has published over 200 scientific publications and has delivered over 250 invited and scientific meeting presentations.