Dozens of science journalists will converge at U of T to explore our labs and learn about the latest research when the university hosts the annual Canadian Science Writers’ Association (CSWA) meeting from June 5 to 8.
Aaron Wheeler, a pioneer in the field of digital microfluidics, is one of the U of T scientists taking part in the event. Wheeler says he stumbled into this exciting new field of research “kind of by accident.”
As an undergraduate chemistry major with an interest in the life sciences, Wheeler, a panellist at the upcoming CSWA annual meeting, quickly realized that organic synthesis for drug development wasn’t a pursuit that played to his strengths. A course in analytical chemistry “opened my eyes,” as he realized he could work on instruments and apply the instrumentation and methods to problems in the life sciences.
During his graduate studies at Stanford University and his post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA, Wheeler was caught up in the boom in microfluidics, the technology that “allows you to take the same techniques used to make computer chips for creating chemistry and biology chips.”
“I ate it up,” he said, noting that he was captivated by the lab-on-a-chip, “taking processes that typically require a big laboratory and miniaturizing them to small, portable analytic systems.”
His U of T research group focuses on digital microfluidics, a subset of microfluidics that works with “discrete liquid droplets that are controlled individually” and also integrates well into a lab-on-a-chip. In an interview for the Institute for Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering at U of T, Wheeler described digital microfluidics as a “bit of plumbing that we can apply to lots of interesting things: diagnostics, chemical synthesis, tissue engineering, cell culture and analysis.” His group is busy developing better bits of plumbing in this emerging field.
Wheeler’s work in capturing, storing and analyzing droplets of blood, for example, has applications for newborn screening, as well as forensics, and digital microfluidics provides a “nice platform to grow cells in hydrogels,” a valuable medium in tissue engineering. One of his graduate students has created DropBot, an open-source automated system that uses electricity to move droplets around a chip and has an untold number of potential applications.
Currently, Wheeler’s group is competing for a grant to develop a lab-on-chip screening device for measles and rubella in low-resource areas where there are no comparable methods available.
“My group and I are often focusing on practical problems with no conventional solutions,” he said. “I’m always eager to continue integrating and miniaturizing.”
Wheeler will participate in the Better Living Through Technology panel on June 8 at the CSWA annual meeting.