Current medical trends require the development of complex, highly-specific biological molecules known as antibody conjugates that use precision targeting to deliver payloads to specific tissues and organisms. To facilitate the use of these specialized molecules, a new class of acoustic microfluidic devices was created to modify and separate antibodies/proteins for benchtop antibody modification.

While working in the SIMS Lab at Washington University in St. Louis, I built, patented, and published our findings showing successful retention of antibodies in an acoustically confined substrate. Further findings show that serial chemical reactions within the acoustic wells can be performed with rapid reagent introduction and removal.

Additionally, we have shown that the longitudinal acoustic microdevices selectively retain particles on the order of microns from nano-scaled particulates. This application opens the doorway for acoustic separation in a scalable longitudinal platform.