Zohora IqbalPhD

student

My Education Path

My Education Path• Undergraduate– Las Positas/Chabot College (2.5 years)–UC Berkeley (2.5 years)

• Working at start-up– Ion Torrent (1 year)

• Graduate School–UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco

combined graduate program (current)

Bioengineer

Engineering Biology

technical problem-solving

study of life and

medicine

BIOENGINEERING

amyris.com

Bioengineering Research at Berkeley

• Bioinstrumentation– imaging: MRI imaging near metal

implants– diagnostic tools: micro/nano scale

protein analysis– bioMEMS: microfabricated devices

• Microfluidics, drug delivery systems

– artificial organs

• Biomaterials and Nanotechnology– biomimetics– surface coating for implants

• Cell and Tissue Engineering– Stem cells– single cell studies to better

understand cellular systems

• Computational Biology– dna and protein data analysis.– producing models of proteins or

biomolecules

• Systems and Synthetic Biology– controlling microbes to produce

desired molecules such as insulin…fuels, plastics..etc. medication..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i-_1QdY2Zc

Undergraduate Research Experiences

• Sandia National Lab in Livermore– microfluidics: single

cell macrophage studies

– picoliter reaction chambers

• Virginia Tech: Davalos Lab– simulation of devices

for cancer cell separation

• UC Berkeley: Herr Lab– on-chip protein

separation based on isoelectric point

Working at Ion-array of wells-each one holds a bead with thousands of single stranded DNA-nucleotide flows over it, and if one gets incorporated, H+ released, and so by measuring the pH

Why PhD?

• More opportunities– especially in the bioE field…lot of work

going on in research– easier to lead your own project:

Rotations

• Roy Lab– lung project

• Maharbiz Lab–Miniaturized Tesla turbine

• Herr Lab– protein separation

• PICKED ROY LAB: Artificial Kidney

Kidney

Nephron

• cleans out toxins and excess substances from blood

• filtration based on size driven by blood pressure

• reabsorption of necessary nutrients, solutes and water via active and passive transport

End Stage Renal Disease

• ESRD: complete or near complete loss of kidney function, often due to diabetes and/or hypertension

• Current treatment:– kidney transplant– hemodialysis

• typically done ~3x/week using external diffusion driven dialysis system

– peritoneal dialysis• patient’s own pertoneum

in diffusion driven filtration

ESRD Statistics

• Data from 2010– more than ~170,000

new ESRD patients added

– prevalence: ~0.6 million

– total kidney transplants: 17,778

– total Medicare ESRD expenditure: $33 billion

– total ESRD expenditure: $47.5 billion

Artificial Kidney

• 2 parts: filtration and reabsorption– filtration based on size– reabsorption bioreactor

• use of silicon membrane– why silicon?

• uniformity high selectivity

• robustness• ease of fabrication through

MEMS technology• mass production• high throughput given area

Silicon Membrane

• Pore Size:– long slits• pore length: 4.5 um• pore height: 13 nm

pore• pore width: 40 um

Biofouling

-Cells and proteins attach to surface limiting filtration

polySBMA surface coating

BrTMOS initiator

Silicon

SBMA

Key Points

• Be a team player• Know how to avail the resources

you have• Learn how to learn: be willing to

learn new materials