This is a past event.

Chemical Engineering Seminar

Dr. John Oakey

Professor 

University of Wyoming

Abstract

Microfluidics and soft matter physics provide a unique toolkit to interrogate biological systems at the resolution of a single cell. My research program operates at this convergence, exploiting the fundamental physics of viscosity-dominated flows and interfacial tension to microfabricate functional biomaterials that solve complex challenges in human health and fundamental cell biology. In this talk, I will demonstrate how controlling material architecture at the mesoscale allows us to program biological function. I will present two distinct vignettes that progress from fundamental intracellular physics to applied tissue engineering. First, I will discuss cellular organization and scaling. Using a novel microfluidic encapsulation platform, we isolated cell-free cytoplasmic extracts to investigate how organelles scale with cell size. By rigorously controlling the volume and geometry of the cytoplasmic environment, we discovered fundamental scaling relationships that govern intracellular architecture. This work settled intractable biological questions and established a new engineering framework for studying subcellular phase separation and confinement under strictly controlled boundary conditions. Second, I translate these confinement principles to applications in regenerative medicine, focusing on granular hydrogel scaffolds. By deterministically encapsulating single cells within microscale hydrogel microparticles, we create modular tissues that can be assembled into hierarchical structures. I will show how we tune the interfacial properties and internal heterogeneity of these microgels to promote cell infiltration and differentiation, offering a scalable solution for complex tissue scaffold design and delivery

Bio

John Oakey obtained his BS in Chemical Engineering at Penn State University and an MS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He has been active in microfluidic technology development since the inception of the field, starting with optically-integrated colloid-based microfluidic devices and leading to high throughput screening, low-cost diagnostics, and material fabrication. He performed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he developed diagnostic and therapeutic applications for microfluidic devices. In 2010 he joined the University of Wyoming’s Department of Chemical Engineering. His current research interests continue themes relating to the development of new microfluidic and mesoscale biomaterials fabrication technologies. Applications include the design and construction of microenvironments to understand fundamental mechanisms of cellular motility, rapidly screening cell-matrix interactions at the single cell level, and the rational design and evaluation of particulate and granular materials for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and wound healing. He has been recognized as a National Science Foundation CAREER Awardee, an ACS Petroleum Research Fund New Investigator Award, a Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigator, and a Marine Biological Laboratory Whitman Fellow. Most recently he has spent two years at ETH Zürich’s Macromolecular Engineering Laboratory as a Gastprofessor. His work has been supported by the NSF, NIH, NASA, and the Department of Defense, among others