Design and development of organ-on-a-chip technology for preclinical safety and efficacy evaluation of pharmacological agents, nanomaterials, and cellular therapies.

- Engineering interfaces between active biological components and synthetic building blocks- Designing and fabricating organ mimic platforms for drug discovery and evaluation- Building organomimetic cardiac, vascular and airway bronchial smooth ‘muscle-on-chip’ platforms- Integration of these chips into microfluidic devices for coupling with other organ mimics- Alleviating translational barriers (throughput and reproducibility of readout, standardization and validation of platform and scalability of manufacture) for commercial adoption of these technologies- Writing grants (DARPA, NIH and Pharmaceutical companies) and managing funded research

- Tools for quantitative evaluation of protein non-fouling surfaces- Planning and setting up of new lab space at Columbia University

KEYWORDS: bionanotechnology, smart dust, lab on a chip, molecular motors, nanorobotics, self healing materials, microfabrication, nanofabrication, adaptive materials, unobtanium, bioconjugation, microfluidics, potential energy surfaces, lots of fun