From Electronics, Mechanics, and Artificial Intelligence to Medicine

Date: 2024/04/19 - 2024/04/19

Academic Seminar: From Electronics, Mechanics, and Artificial Intelligence to Medicine

Speaker: Roozbeh Abedini-Nassab, Associate Professor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University

Time: 10:00 - 11:30, April 19, 2024 (Beijing Time)

Location: CIMC Auditorium（Room 300）, JI Long Bin Building

Abstract

Nowadays, interdisciplinary fields are increasingly gaining popularity as they allow researchers to answer the needs of the world by working on untouched areas of various disciplines. Single-cell arrays (SCAs) are an important example that require expertise in various engineering fields as well as medicine and biology. It has important applications in the analysis of phenotypic and genotypic heterogeneity, which is difficult or impossible to analyze in bulk cell culture or patient samples. However, existing systems lack the required combination of being adequately, programmable, flexible, and massive-scale to enable the study of cell behaviors and cell-cell interactions at the scales necessary to analyze extremely rare events. To advance the field, we have developed a novel, programmable, and massively parallel SCA system that is based on the principles of computer circuits. By integrating these magnetic circuits with microfluidics channels, we have developed a platform that can organize a large number of single cells into an array in a controlled manner. Our programmable magnetic circuits allow both individual cells as well as single-cell pairs to be formed into large arrays and incubated on the chip for multiple days, enabling the long-term phenotypic analysis of rare cellular events. Artificial Intelligence is then used to analyze the big data extracted to uncover the unknown in single-cell biology and medicine.

Biography

After earning degrees in Electrical Engineering, Roozbeh Abedini-Nassab became a fellow at Duke’s Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering (CBTE) and received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University. Then he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, and now he is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Roozbeh Abedini-Nassab is interested in employing engineering techniques, microfabrication, and nanotechnology in developing novel tools and innovative methods to answer important questions in Biology and Medicine and to overcome challenges in the diagnosis of human diseases. His research interests include Biomechanics, BioMEMS, Biomedical Microdevices, Magnetics, Microfluidics, Lab-on-a-Chip systems, Single-Cell analysis, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). His scientific works have been published in well-known high-impact journals, including Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and Advanced Functional Materials. Moreover, he has filed US patent applications as a co-inventor. He has received several awards for presenting his works at various scientific conferences and publishing them in scientific journals.