March Meeting Notice

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Micro and Nanofluidic Devices for Performing Chemical Separations

Dr. Michael Ramsey

Department of Chemistry
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC

Abstract:

There has been rapidly growing interest in microfabricated fluidic devices (microchips) over the past decade. The diversity of chemical and biochemical measurement techniques that have been implemented on microchips includes various electrophoretic and chromatographic separations, chemical and enzymatic reactions, noncovalent recognition interactions, sample concentration enhancement, and cellular manipulations. In addition, the types of samples addressed by microchips has been broad in scope, e.g., small ions and molecules, single and double stranded DNA, amino acids, peptides, and proteins. These devices have low cost and small footprints while consuming miniscule quantities of reagents and can rapidly produce precise results. All of these features suggest the possibility to perform chemical and biochemical experimentation on a massive scale at low cost on a bench top, a goal being pursued by many laboratories around the world. More recently we have been investigating the prospects of shrinking channel lateral dimensions by a factor of ≈ 1000, i.e., to molecular length scales. The fabrication of nanofluidic channels allows fundamental studies of transport at previously unexplored length scales as well as enabling potentially new capabilities such as the detection and characterization of single molecules.

About the Speaker:

J. Michael Ramsey (Ph.D., chemistry, Indiana University) currently holds the Minnie N. Goldby Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Dr. Ramsey is also a member of the faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences in the UNC-CH School of Medicine and a member of the Institute of Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a recipient of a senior Alexander von Humboldt Award, the Frederick Capillary Electrophoresis Award, the A. J. P. Martin Gold Medal for Separation Science, the Marcel J.E. Golay Award in Capillary Chromatography, the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, the American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation, the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award and most recently the American Chemical Society Award in Chromatography. His present research interests include microfabricated chemical instrumentation, micro- and nanofluidics, single molecule DNA sequencing, single cell assays and highly miniaturized mass spectrometry. Dr. Ramsey has published over 200 papers and presented over 400 invited, plenary, or named lectures. In addition, he is the scientific founder of Caliper Life Sciences, Corp., the leading supplier of commercial Lab-on-a-Chip products.

Details:

Location:	D'ignazio's Towne House
Times:	5:00 PM Executive Committee Meeting 5:45 PM Social "Hour" 6:30 PM Dinner 7:30 PM Presentation
Cost:	$30
Dinner Choices:	Chicken Breast with Wild Rice Stuffing Baked Salmon Eggplant Parmesan with Marinara Sauce

NOTICE TO STUDENTS AND FACULTY: Full-time students with valid ID may attend dinner meetings at half-price. Faculty members at colleges and universities are urged to bring one or more students to the meeting. If they do, they also can attend at half-price.