Guest Speaker – Analytical (CHEM 741) – April 3, 2023

Bio
Dr. Daniele is an Associate Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a co-founder of the NC State Institute for Connected Sensors-Systems (IConS) and member of the NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies — ASSIST (assist.ncsu.edu). He joined the faculty in 2015 from the U.S. Naval Research Lab, where he was a Jerome and Isabella Karle Distinguished Scholar in Materials Engineering. Dr. Daniele’s primary area of interest is the engineering of microsystems which monitor, mimic or augment biological function. Specific topics of research include wearable and implantable biosensors, microphysiological systems, regenerative medicines, and process analytical technologies.

Abstract
The average time to market for pharmaceutical products is 12 years, with only a 14% clinical trial success rate. Microphysiological systems (MPS), are poised to revolutionize drug discovery and pre-clinical trials by mimicking and predicting human physiological response, toxicity, and pharmacodynamics/pharmacokinetics better than animal models; however, the reliance on post facto analyses limits throughput and value of MPS. I will present our demonstration of MPS with functional sensing and actuation capabilities for investigating fundamental biological processes and pre-clinical drug testing. We leveraged the reduced shear and laminar flow properties of the microfluidic device to construct a microscale tissue in direct contact with an endothelial barrier, eliminating multilayer fabrication, and better simulating the in vivo microanatomy. Passive electrical, mechanical, and imaging sensing were integrated with the MPS to non-destructively monitor development and performance of the MPS to avoid ad hoc sacrifice and analyses. We envision the future development of parallelized MPS for alternative tissue systems, e.g., brain, liver, kidney, and fibrotic tissue, in which novel therapeutics can be screened and performance can be determined non-destructively and in real time to elucidate system dynamics.