Environmental Biomarkers for Disease
The objective of this project is the identification and evaluation of biomarkers relevant for disease. Protein adducts in the blood are used as a proxy for environmental toxins such as benzene or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The project develops a high througput assay based on programmable microfluidics with integrated electronic detection using magnetic labels.
Researchers: Paul Liu, Amy Wu, Lisen Wang
Collaborators: Prof. Steven Rappaport, School of Public Health and Prof. Richard Mathies, Chemistry
Funding: NIEHS and Robert Bosch Corporation
Point-of-Care Medical Diagnostic Device
Despite progress in over-the-counter diagnostic kits, medical testing largely relies on laboratory infrastructure. This project aims at developing fully autonomous tests for infectious diseases. The project uses magnetic microbeads to label, manipulate, and detect molecules that are indicative of disease.
Researchers: Octavian Florescu, Kevan Wang
Collaborators: Prof. Eva Harris, School of Public Health and Prof. Robert Beatty, MCB
Funding: NIH
CMOS Integrated Nanowire Molecular Gas Sensors
The large surface to volume ratio makes nanowires ideally suited for gas sensing. The small signals or signals from arrays of sensors are efficiently extracted with CMOS interface electronics underneath or adjacent to the nanowire sensors.
Researcher: Karl Skucha
Collaborators: Prof. Ali Javey, BSAC
Funding: BSAC & Intel
Personal Dead Reckoning Navigation Device
Although GPS has revolutionalized navigation, the reliance on satellites limits its availability indoors, in dense cities, or other challenging terrain. Dead-reckoning using inertial sensors overcomes these drawbacks but instead suffers from excessive sensor drift and/or cost. This project aims to overcome these problems with a combination of new error correcting navigation algorithms and highly integrated low-drift velocity sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes based on Aluminum Nitride surface micromachining.
Researchers: Richie Przybyla, Igor Izyumin
Collaborators: Proff. David Horsley & Albert Pisano, BSAC and Prof. Steven Glaser, Civil Engineering
Funding: DARPA
Novel High-Z Materials for Nuclear Detection
The goal of this research is to characterize novel materials for nuclear detection. Present solutions such as Germanium suffer from one or more shortcomings including low molecular weight and consequent impractical material thickness requirements, a need for cooling owing to low bandgap, and high material cost. This project develops fast electronics for analyzing the detection and charge transport characteristics of novel high-Z detector candidates.
Researcher: Mitchell Kline
Collaborators: Proff. Eugene Haller & Ramesh, MSE/Physics & LBL
Funding: NSF
Low-Power Analog-to-Digital Converter based on Passive Voltage Amplification
A/D converters continue to be a performance determining building block of electronic systems, with power efficiency increasingly the most critical factor. This project uses passive voltage amplification as a means to significantly lower converter power.
Researcher: Yida Duan
Collaborators: Prof. Elad Alon, EECS
Funding: BSAC