Bioengineering Seminar: FACULTY CANDIDATE

Micro- and Nano-scale Technologies for Applications in Medicine and Biology
MAR 27th, 1:00 PM in ENGR 3507
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Hadi Shafiee, PhD
Research Fellow of Medicine
Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School

Abstract
Micro- and nano-scale technologies can have a significant impact on medicine and biology in the areas of cell manipulation, diagnostics, and monitoring. At the convergence of these new technologies and biology, I research for enabling solutions to the real world problems at the clinic. Emerging nano-scale and microfluidic technologies integrated with biology offer innovative possibilities for creating intelligent, mobile medical lab-chip devices that could transform diagnostics and monitoring, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This seminar will outline Dr. Shafiee's work in developing micro-technologies with applications in disease diagnostics and treatment monitoring at the point-of-care and primary care settings. Several microchip technologies developed to detect infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS through CD4 count and viral load monitoring, peritonitis (inflammation of peritoneal membrane in patients with end stage renal disease failure) through neutrophil count, and cancer through circulating tumor cells detection and count in unprocessed fingerprick volume whole blood and serum samples will be presented. These emerging technologies could shape our future creating broadly applicable platforms for scientific discovery, providing clinical solutions for resource-constrained settings in the developing world as well as for primary care settings in the developed world.

Brief Biosketch
Dr. Shafiee is a Research Fellow at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology and Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research is focused on developing micro- and nano-scale diagnostic technologies for real world problems in medicine such as infectious diseases detection and treatment monitoring at the point-of-care, and early cancer diagnosis.  Dr. Shafiee is the author of more than 10 journal articles published in Nature Scientific Reports, Small, Lab-Chip, Journal of Haematology, and Electrophoresis, 1 book chapter, 27 conference proceedings, and 3 provisional patents. His work has been featured on the cover of premier journals in the field of micro- and nano-technologies including Small, Lab-Chip, and Electrophoresis. His research was also highlighted in NewsWise, Medical News, VT Research Magazine, Chemical Biology, Small, BWH Clinical Research News, and Lab-on-a-Chip and has been recognized by national awards including Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from National Institute of Health (NIH), MIT Media Lab, Paul Torgersen Research Excellence Award, and Liviu Librescu Fellowship. His publications in microfluidics have been cited more than 200 times in the past 2 years. Dr. Shafiee has also been enthusiastic about translational aspect of his academic research. He conducted his PhD work to develop a microfluidic technology from proof-of-concept through a commercial licensing agreement. He has been actively involved in technology transfer and commercialization in two biotech start-ups through preparing business plans, SBIR, and STTR grant proposals. He also has several years of industrial experience as lead engineer in managing a team of engineers to design the piping routes and equipment arrangement of multiple petrochemical and power plants. Dr. Shafiee hopes for a day that his ideas at the interface of engineering and medicine change people's lives with a better global health, particularly those with urgent and unmet clinical needs in the developing countries.


Claudia Borke
Program Administrator
Volgenau School of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering
3800 Nguyen Engineering Building, 1G5
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: (703) 993-4190
Fax: (703) 993-2077