Improving upon a previous design, senior Eric Simone, a biomedical engineering major, created a microchip which has the ability to manipulate and isolate proteins and DNA.
The chip, combined with the proper equipment, has the potential to become an important tool in a multitude of fields, from medical diagnostic tests to altering chemical reactions to detecting particular biohazards.
According to Simone the "applications are endless," citing the possibility of using his project as a "lab-on-a-chip."
Simone, 21, designed, built and tested his chip in cooperation with Assistant Professor Jeff Tza-Huei Wang's lab. Wang is on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Department of Mechanical Engineering as well as the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute.
Working with Wang, Simone was able to improve on Wang's straight-electrode design by using a creative circular electrode approach.
Experimentally, this new design performed better than the original. "This chip gives us a new tool to look into biological questions," said Wang in a recent Hopkins press release. "Eric can actually interact with and manipulate individual DNA molecules."
The chip functions by using electric fields to manipulate molecules that are either naturally charged (such as DNA), or tagged with a charged fluorescence marker.
Wang explained this in his own words: "The chip has tiny wires, each about one-fifth the diameter of a human hair, embedded in a circular pattern. When it's connected to a power source, it allows us to generate an electric field that can transport molecules to a designated area for study."
Tests that he has run with the chip includes "manipulation of different types particles (e.g. beads and quantum dots or QDs) that can be [attached] to biomolecules, thus enabling control of them and DNA, varying input parameters to the chip," according to Simone.
"Single Bio-Molecule Detection With Quantum Dots In A Microchannel," a paper which featured the results of Simone's work, and which he was second author on, was presented at the 17th IEEE International Conference on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, held in Maastricht, the Netherlands in late January.
As a recipient of a Provost's Undergraduate Research Award grant, Simone was able to spend a majority of this past summer working on the chip as part of Wang's lab, which he has been a member of since January, 2003, when he was the first undergraduate to join the lab.
Wang has since taken more undergraduates into his laboratory and has found them to be valuable members of his team. "Once they are motivated," Wang said in a JHU press release, "they do a really good job."
Simone was one of 41 students who received funding from the Hodson Trust in 2004. The grants give up to $3,000 to students to pursue their projects and are open to students in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the Whiting School of Engineering, the School of Nursing or the Peabody Conservatory, giving students in non-science fields a chance to plan and execute their own projects as well.
Simone, originally from Anderson Township, Ohio, plans to pursue a doctoral program in biomedical engineering, potentially followed by a career in the biomedical industry.
