I received my B.S. degree from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China in 2011 and currently am pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah. I mainly work on developing an implantable vascular coupling device to perform end-to-end anastomosis. We are hoping that our vascular coupling device would replace the traditional suturing method in an efficient and safe way.
My main project: Vascular coupling device for end-to-end anastomosis.
Abstract: Vessel anastomosis is common and often necessary during reconstructive and free tissue transfer surgeries. The current method of vessel anastomosis is traditional hand suturing. This technique is time consuming, difficult, and requires complex instruments. Prior attempts have been made at improving this technique, including various mechanical devices, adhesives and laser welding, etc. Each of these prior attempts was either more cumbersome than traditional hand suturing, was unable to maintain a tight seal, did not work for both veins and arteries, or increased thrombosis rates. To provide a more efficient and reliable vessel anastomosis, we are developing a new vascular coupling device (VCD) that can perform end-toend anastomosis in a quicker, easier and safer way.
Another project: Complete blood counting technique using microfluidics
Abstract: Peripheral blood smear examination is a common, inexpensive and powerful diagnostic aid, which can provide reliable information about a variety of hematologic disorders, and is often used as a follow-up test to abnormal results on a complete blood count. Both these techniques require technical expertise and involve elaborate handling steps for sample preparation, which is prone to introducing artifacts, and neither is readily adaptable to use in low resource environments by untrained personnel. Attempts have been made at developing faster, automatic diagnostic methods for more reliable blood analysis, but most of these methods are expensive and focused on specific disease diagnosis, like Malaria. To keep the general applicability and clinical versatility of blood smear, we designed and fabricated a portable, automated, and low cost microfluidic device that integrates blood loading, metering, diluting, fixing, and staining on a chip, providing the ability to do a variety of clinical diagnostic measurements such as: complete blood count, differential blood analysis, and sickle cell determination. We also developed a new fabrication method to integrate glass into threedimensional PDMS device.
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