Ravi Selvaganapathy, McMaster University
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Professor
Hamilton, Ontario
selvaga@mcmaster.ca
Office:
(905) 525-9140 ext. 27435
Expert In
Bio/Research
My research interests, broadly, are in the design, fabrication and development of microdevices for application in biology, medicine. In addition, I have an interest in application of microfluidics to thermal management. Specifically, I am interested in use of microfabrication techniques - convent...
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Bio/Research
My research interests, broadly, are in the design, fabrication and development of microdevices for application in biology, medicine. In addition, I have an interest in application of microfluidics to thermal management. Specifically, I am interested in use of microfabrication techniques - conventionally used in microelectronic industry – in parallel fabrication of precise and low cost microfluidic devices that could perform chemical and biological unit operations. At a more fundamental level, I am interested in the understanding and the use of electrically driven flows for transport and control in these devices as these are the dominant effects in the microscale.
Currently, my research focuses on developing microfluidic devices for application in drug discovery, medical/environmental diagnosis and drug delivery. In addition, we are active in developing solutions for thermal management of electronics using microfluidics. Our group has developed microfabrication procedures and process flows for incorporating novel materials such as paraffin [1], porous polymer monoliths [2], thermal sensitive phase change polymers [3], and biocompatible polyurethane [4] in microfluidic devices.
We have then used the unique properties of these materials in design and development of microfluidic components such as micropumps, microvalves, detectors and light sources. For example, we have developed the smallest electrokinetic micropumps using porous polymer monolith [2, 5], thermopneumatic microvalves using paraffin [1] and pNIPPAM (poly N-isopropyl acrylamide) [3], first microfluidic light source and detectors using microplasmas [6] and the highest pressure generating electrohydrodynamic pumps [7, 8, 9] for electronic cooling application.
Combining some of these components, we have also developed integrated microsystems that use these functional components with applications in medical diagnostics [10], drug discovery [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16], drug delivery [17] and electronic cooling [7, 8, 9]. Some of our key accomplishments using these devices include development of the first microfluidic high throughput microinjection system for embryos, discovery of highly repeatable electrotaxis of C.elegans in microfluidic channels and demonstration of control, transport and sorting of C.elegans.
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Currently, my research focuses on developing microfluidic devices for application in drug discovery, medical/environmental diagnosis and drug delivery. In addition, we are active in developing solutions for thermal management of electronics using microfluidics. Our group has developed microfabrication procedures and process flows for incorporating novel materials such as paraffin [1], porous polymer monoliths [2], thermal sensitive phase change polymers [3], and biocompatible polyurethane [4] in microfluidic devices.
We have then used the unique properties of these materials in design and development of microfluidic components such as micropumps, microvalves, detectors and light sources. For example, we have developed the smallest electrokinetic micropumps using porous polymer monolith [2, 5], thermopneumatic microvalves using paraffin [1] and pNIPPAM (poly N-isopropyl acrylamide) [3], first microfluidic light source and detectors using microplasmas [6] and the highest pressure generating electrohydrodynamic pumps [7, 8, 9] for electronic cooling application.
Combining some of these components, we have also developed integrated microsystems that use these functional components with applications in medical diagnostics [10], drug discovery [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16], drug delivery [17] and electronic cooling [7, 8, 9]. Some of our key accomplishments using these devices include development of the first microfluidic high throughput microinjection system for embryos, discovery of highly repeatable electrotaxis of C.elegans in microfluidic channels and demonstration of control, transport and sorting of C.elegans.
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