PhD Candidate, Weiqiang Chen, is expected to graduate winter 2016, but his research accomplishments in the medical field have already been recognized by renowned organizations. Chen has won both the American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship and the Baxter Young Investigator Award.
The American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship is designed to help students jumpstart a career in cardiovascular and stroke research. The Baxter Young Investigator Award also helps to fund research, encouraging graduate and postdoctoral students to contribute to the development of medical products and therapies that can elongate a patient’s life.
Chen’s research takes place in Dr. Jianping Fu’s Integrated Biosystems and Biomechanics Laboratory. The lab blends research in micro/nanoengineering, biophysics, biology, and biotechnology. It focuses on developing integrated systems for high throughput quantitative micro/nanoscale analysis of molecular and cellular functions, and is interested in developing synthetic micro/nanoscale cellular microenvironment to direct cellular behaviors. The researchers plan to use these microenvironments to identify the extrinsic physical factors and their downstream signaling pathways that regulate cell functions.
Chen approaches his research in the lab from multiple angles. With other lab members, he has published three separate research papers, entitled, “Acoustic tweezing cytometry for live-cell subcellular control of intracellular cytoskeleton contractility,” “Surface-micromachined microfiltration membranes for efficient isolation and functional immunophenotyping of subpopulations of immune cells,” and “Nanoroughened surfaces for efficient capture of circulating tumor cells without using capture antibodies.”
These research papers can be viewed for further explanation at researchgate.net.
