Alexandra La Londe receives award for bio-separations research

2016 Jan 27

Three students from Rochester Institute of Technology were recognized for their research findings about improvements to bio-separation techniques for lab-on-a-chip medical devices. They were awarded top honors in several categories in the undergraduate and graduate research competitions at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting and conference in November in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Alexandra La Londe placed first in the Undergraduate Research Posters Competition-Separations Division. More than 300 research projects by undergraduate students from universities across the country were presented in this competition and were judged by university professors and researchers from different research areas.

The students work introduced improved microfluidic techniques with the potential to separate larger and rare cells found in fluids such as blood, reducing the time to separate these particles and significantly lowering the time that biological cells were exposed to negative dielectrophoretic effects. Techniques for separating fluid samples are useful in areas where rapid results are essential such as testing for food and water safety or clinical analysis of disease.

"In my almost 11 years as a faculty member, this is the first time that I had 100 percent of the students win awards. I took three students who presented eight papers at the conference and they all took awards at the conference. It is unheard of," said Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, associate professor of biomedical engineering in RITs Kate Gleason College of Engineering. She mentors all three students in her Microscale BioSeparations Laboratory developing techniques in microfluidics to separate cells so that scientists and clinicians can better analyze diseases through technology such as lab-on-a-chip devices highly sophisticated laboratories on microchips. This work is part of her National Science Foundation grant-funded project Rapid and Dynamic Cell Assessments in Dielectrophoresis-based Microfluidic Devices. These devices have multiple channels where fluid samples are assessed after being exposed to electrical currents that cause the bio-particles to separate for more efficient analysis. The student-researchers have been involved in advancing device system designs and in determining the threshold of electrical fields applied to adequately manipulate the fluids but also ensuring that live cells are not damaged.

“It’s such as specific field and it’s nice to get other opinions from people who actually do the same work. These techniques will be good for diagnostics and clinical relevance, and this system can be used for something as applicable as detecting cancer cells. It was also nice to talk to people at the conference who had such a wealth of knowledge in this area, not only for the experience, but also to be able to talk to others who were familiar with what we were working on,” said LaLonde. She will graduate from RIT this May.

Students need to have both an understanding of engineering and biological theory, but also the math modeling necessary to assess different designs and processes, said Lapizco-Encinas.

"They spend as much time at the computer as they do with a microscope and preparing experiments. They all worked really hard and it shows," she added. "I value their level of professionalism and dedication. The degree of complexity keeps increasing because we keep learning and using these techniques to implement our next steps. There were some struggles, but kept pushing; these students are smart and resilient."