UC Merced Expert 

Professor Michelle Khine describes herself as a toolmaker. But the tools she builds are not quite the power drills and hammers you might think of. Khine specializes in microfluidic devices beautifully suited for tracking and examining individual cells – an important ability for stem cell researchers and other scientists working at the cellular systems level.

 

As stem cell engineering and bioengineering progress, Khine’s tools may contribute to advances that help combat infectious diseases, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, genetic disorders and cancer. One current research project funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) involves engineering heart and blood vessel tissue for patients who have heart disease.

 

Khine also thinks big in terms of what the world needs, an approach she says is vital for keeping students – especially women and minorities – in science and engineering. Her “Lab on a Chip” course teaches students the basics of chip design and production with an important humanitarian goal in mind: an inexpensive, disposable test for tuberculosis that can be distributed and used in third-world countries.

 

Khine is a successful entrepreneur, having started the company Fluxion Biosciences while in graduate school. In addition to bioengineering and microfluidic devices, she can address questions about entrepreneurship and academia – the importance of developing successful businesses based on university research.