Background

Nature often does the great things that are far beyond current human capabilities and imagination. The beauty is that there are always fundamental principles underneath complex system behaviors. Learning from bio-systems in nature, especially at the nano-scale, is and will continue to inspire and guide many emerging approaches to research in terms of robotics, materials, control and system theory.

Mingjun's Research Interests

Nano Bio-systems and Nano Bio-mimetics. Nano-scale biological systems inspired technology and system theory, nano-scale adhesive and climbing mechanism, lab-on-a-chip, molecular diagnostics, bio-marker based controlled drug delivery, bio-sensors, modeling, tracking and control of nano bio-systems.

We view molecular machinery as a complex system, employ system theory to understand cell bio-physical problems, and micro/nano-scale technology to control the machinery for biomedical applications.

Over the past several years, my research has focused on fundamental techniques that may help to explore the above interests, including mathematical modeling techniques for cell biology, micro/nano-scale bio-control mechanisms, bio-chip fabrication, lab-on-a-chip molecular diagnostics, biological confocal microscopy and AFM.

I am currently working on ivy adhesive and climbing mechanism as well as inspired technology, inkjet technology enabled probe tips for bio-nano-applications, dynamics and feed forward control of biological molecular systems, game theoretical formulation of the biological immune system, integration of biological confocal and AFM for understanding and controlling cell dynamics.

Introduction to General Research Interests

This lab is interested in applying advanced instrumentation and system theory to study bio-physical and bio-medical problems. We are particularly interested in mathematical modeling and control of nanoscale bio-dynamics through non-invasive physical effects. It is our dream to quantitatively describe and effectively control cellular dynamics, and to build molecular machines for disease treatment.

Molecular machinery opens a new "window" for change not only in the way things are made small, but also how diseases are treated. The dream of making tiny molecular robots for disease treatment is possible. In fact, the topic is becoming an active research area for bio-nanotechnology and nanomedicine. This concept raises many challenges for engineering.

One major challenge is to understand how the bio-nanomachine/robot works, especially in regard to micro/nanoscale dynamics and control. It has been shown that myosins act as biological motors, moving along actin filaments and transducing chemical potential to do the work, but it is not clear what the control mechanisms are. Neurons are perfect communication machines, but they have not been adequately described in a quantitative framework that would help to quantify signal to noise ratio, channel capacity, and understand why their communication is so reliable. Similarly, DNA machines are very robust in transferring genetic information, but it is not clear what the control mechanisms are.

The above research will benefit from dynamics modeling and control of molecular and cellular systems. In fact, the RNA interference technique, which won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is a perfect example of how to control signals in molecular machinery and affect outcome of a biological system.

Micro/nanoscale bio-dynamics, control, instrumentation and molecular machinery are our research interests. Advanced instrumentation, mathematical modeling, dynamics analysis, and control are heavily employed in this lab to understand bi-physical and medical problems. The lab is equiped with advanced confocal microscopy, AFM, and two CRS seven degree-of-freedom robotic systems.

Our industrial experiences include micro/nanoscale life science system integration and automation, genomics and proteomics automation, and bio-chip fabrication. We have successfully delivered projects on micro/nanoscale dynamics modeling and control for various life science applications, including DNA microarray fabrication, microarray hybridization, gene guns, electroporation-mediated gene therapy, etc.

Projects

Projects completed or currently running at the lab are related to: