Principal Investigator Jongyoon Han
Project Website http://www.rle.mit.edu/micronano/
The Research Lab of Electronics (RLE) Micro / Nanofluidic BioMEMS Group is exploring various ways that micro/nanofabrication techniques can be used for advanced biomolecule manipulation and separation applications. It is now possible to reliably fabricate nanofluidic gaps and filters that have regular, controllable structures, with near-molecular dimensions (10 -100nm). One can take advantage of these nanofluidic structures for advanced separation and manipulation of various biomolecules and bioparticles, including cell, cellular organelles, DNA, protein, and carbohydrates. The research of group is currently involved with actively designing, fabricating and testing the new kinds of molecular sieves and filters that can be essential for the next-generation biomolecule assays in the new era of genomics, proteomics and glycomics. At the same time, the subject of molecular stochastic motion and molecular interaction with nanostructure is actively studied, in order to provide firm theoretical and scientific ground for the development of novel nanofluidic molecular filters.
The group is interested in applying micro / nanofabrication methods to solve various technological problems. The current focus areas include micro / nanofluidics, nanofluidic biomolecule separation and detection, and nanostructure-biomolecule interactions.
Just as information in electrical circuits is represented by the movement of electrons and holes, information in biological systems is transmitted, amplified, and processed by the actions of proteins on various biomolecules. These biomolecules include DNA, RNA, proteins, and ions. Understanding biological information processing is important, but we currently lack good tools for measuring these biological signals.
The group focuses on developing tools for detecting, identifying, quantifying, and sorting biomolecules. These tools for biology are analogous to the oscilloscope for electrical engineering. To develop these tools, we use micro/nanofabrication methods that are commonly used to develop MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems). The size scales that can be achieved using these methods enable access to phenomena relevant to biological systems.