Are Microfluidic Biochips the ‘Arduinos’ for Biology?

ABSTRACT: Biochips are cyber-physical systems with realistic potential to improve the healthcare process, e.g., by providing faster disease disease diagnosis and at-home direct treatment. Traditionally, biochips are developed to be used by experts in laboratories or clinics. I expand this vision, by exploring the possibility of an integrated platform for personal use of biochips.

In my work, I address the main challenges that users may encounter: accessibility, bio-protocol design and interaction with microfluidics. I believe this is a first step towards personal laboratories: small portable devices that people can own and use to develop customized bio-protocols (‘bio-apps’), similar to today’s Arduinos.

I will present my work around biochips, finishing with a live demo of my latest device.

BIO: Mirela Alistar is a Postdoc at the Hasso-Plattner- Institute, Germany. She received a PhD in computer engineering from the Technical University of Denmark in 2014. Her main research interests are in the area of system-level design of embedded systems, with a special focus on digital microfluidics. She is supporting open access research and she has organized art & science events, where she disseminates to the public with the aim of involving them into creating more knowledge.

Hosted by: Paul Bogdan