Workshops give hands-on experience to nano-bio researchers
In conjunction with the fifth annual symposium talks and poster session, Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology will hold hands-on laboratory workshops to introduce some of the methods developed by affiliated faculty. Space is limited to participate in the workshops, which will be held the afternoon of Thursday, May 12 at INBT’s headquarters in Suite 100 of the New Engineering Building. Two sessions will take place concurrently. Times, instructors and topics are listed below. If you are interested in signing up for one or more of the workshops, please contact INBT’s administrative coordinator Tracy Smith at TracyINBT@jhu.edu or call 410-516-5634.
For more information about INBT’s symposium on Friday, May 13 click here.
Session A: 1-3 pm
1. Electrospinning of polymeric nanofibers for tissue engineering application: Nanofibrous materials are increasingly used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications and for local delivery of therapeutic agents. Electrospinning is the most widely used method for producing nanofiber matrices because of its high versatility and capacity to generate nanofibers from a variety of polymer solutions or melts. It can generate fibers with diameters ranging from tens of nanometers to a few microns. This workshop will review the basic principle of electrospinning, investigate the effect of several key parameters on fiber generation, demonstrate the method to generate nanofiber mesh and nanofiber conduits, and discuss the potential applications for tissue engineering and repair.
Instructors: Russell Martin and Hai-Quan Mao (Mao Lab)
2. Particle tracking microrheology: This hands-on course will teach participants the fundamentals and applications of high-throughput approaches to cytometry, including cell morphometry and microrheology. These approaches are being used for rapid phenotyping of cancer cells.
Instructors: Wei-Chiang Chen, Pei-Hsun Wu, and Denis Wirtz (Wirtz Lab)
Session B: 3:30-5:30 pm
3. Synthesis of quantum dots for bioengineering: This workshop will provide a hands-on approach to the synthesis of CdSe QD cores and how to purify these cores from excess surfactant. A brief discussion how to successfully electrically passivate the cores will follow. Participants will be able to water solubilize core/shell QDs using pegylated lipids. Several methods for characterizing the QDs through the synthesis and water solubilization will be performed.
Instructors: Charli Dvoracek, Justin Galloway, and Jeaho Park (Searson Lab)
4. Microfluidics for studying cell adhesion: This workshop will focus on fabrication of an “artificial blood vessel” via photolithography to generate a micron-sized (cross-section) channel. The micro-channel will be connected to a syringe pump to initiate fluid flow simulating the blood flow inside a blood vessel. This tool can be used to study how cancer cells interact with “blood vessel” surface when coated with adhesion proteins.
Instructors: Tommy Tong and Eric Balzer (K. Konstantopoulos Lab)
