Medical Engineering Distinguished Seminar Series, Prof. Tony Jun Huang

The use of sound in medicine has a rich and storied history, dating back to 350 BC when the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, often referred to as "the father of medicine," developed a method to detect fluid in the lungs. By shaking patients by their shoulders and listening to the sounds emanating from their chest, he laid the foundation for acoustic diagnostics. In recent years, a new frontier in biomedical acoustic technologies has emerged, known as acoustofluidics. This field merges cutting-edge advancements in acoustics with micro- and nanoscale fluid mechanics, offering unprecedented capabilities in early cancer detection, non-invasive prenatal health monitoring, diagnosis of traumatic brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases, and improved therapeutic approaches for transfusions and immunotherapies. In this talk, I will present our lab's latest progress in the exciting field of acoustofluidics. I will showcase the versatility of acoustofluidic tools for biomedical applications through various examples, including the development of high-purity, high-yield, high-biocompatibility methods for separating circulating biomarkers such as small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) and circulating tumor cells, as well as the creation of highly precise, programable, biocompatible platforms for manipulating cells and studying cell-cell communication. Additionally, I will discuss high-throughput therapeutic approaches for blood component isolation and enrichment, strategies for high-resolution bioprinting, and programmable, contact-free technologies for digital fluid manipulation. These acoustofluidic devices are capable of precisely manipulating objects across seven orders of magnitude, ranging from a few nanometers to several centimeters. With their unique attributes—versatility, precision, and biocompatibility—acoustofluidic devices hold enormous potential as a leading technology for a broad spectrum of applications, playing a pivotal role in translating technological innovations into advancements in biology and medicine.

BIOGRAPHY Tony Jun Huang is the William Bevan Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University. Previously he was a professor and the Huck Distinguished Chair in Bioengineering Science and Mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2005. His research interests are in the fields of acoustofluidics, optofluidics, and micro/nano systems for biomedical diagnostics and therapeutics. He has authored/co-authored over 280 peer-reviewed journal publications in these fields. His journal articles have been cited more than 35,000 times, as documented at Google Scholar (h-index: 98). He also has 26 issued or pending patents. Prof. Huang was elected a fellow (member) of National Academy of Inventers (USA) and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was also a fellow of the following six professional societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Institute of Physics (UK), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). In addition, he has selected to receive many prestigious awards and honors including a 2010 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award, a 2012 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society for Manufacturing Engineering, the 2014 IEEE Sensors Council Technical Achievement Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the 2017 Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the 2019 Van Mow Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the 2019 Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). In the last two consecutive years (2022-2023), he has been named to a global list of the most highly cited researchers (cross field) by Clarivate (Web of Science). https://acoustofluidics.pratt.duke.edu/

Hosted by Professor Wei Gao.