Courses » Workshops

The MicroTAS workshops, presented by some of the best microfluidics researchers, are designed to serve as a short primer to contextualize each workshop topic, while profiling some of the emerging advances. While they are targeted towards training early career researchers, they provide technical insight at a level that cannot be covered during any of the presentations in the main conference. This year, the workshops will occur in a fully virtual format. Each topic will have 2-4 presenters, with pre-recorded presentations being made available a week in advance of the conference to registrants. Hence, attendees can potentially register for multiple workshops with no overlap in timings for access to these contents. As workshops are intended to be interactive, a live Q&A and discussions will be held for each workshop, on the Saturday and Sunday prior to the conference (22 - 23 October 2022). Questions can be submitted in advance or during the panel, so that the moderator can address them to the presenters for discussion of the relevant issues.

The workshops are meant to be a tutorial for people new to a subject area, introducing the foundational ideas. It is not just a series of research presentations.

To add a workshop to an existing registration, please visit this link.

Workshop 1: Tissue and Organ-on-Chip Microsystems
This workshop will cover microsystem-based in vitro approaches to assemble and phenotype organoids, tissues and organs, including methods to recapitulate in vivo cues and disease models.

Q&A Discussion:
Saturday, 22 October, 21:00 - 22:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Saturday, 22 October, 15:00 - 16:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Saturday, 22 October, 06:00 - 07:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Classifications of Organ-On-Chip and Multi-Organ Chips
Séverine Le Gac
University of Twente, NETHERLANDS

Modeling Organs with a Barrier in a Two-Compartment Model
Tae-Eun Park
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, KOREA (ROK)

Organs on a Chip for Women's Health: Placenta-on-a-Chip
Nicole Hashemi
Iowa State University, USA

Scaling Engineered Disease Models for Drug Development
Alison P. McGuigan
University of Toronto, CANADA

Workshop 2: Technologies for Global Health and Resource-Poor Settings
This workshop will cover technologies for resource-poor and point-of-care diagnostics, including design and fabrication of microfluidic chips, assay platforms and connected health care opportunities.

Q&A Discussion:
Saturday, 22 October, 19:00 - 20:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Saturday, 22 October, 13:00 - 14:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Saturday, 22 October, 04:00 - 05:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Analyzing at the Point-of-Use by Centrifugal Microfluidics: Viral Infection, Drugs of Abuse, and Explosives
James Landers (Lead Presenter)
University of Virginia, USA

Killian O'Connell
University of Virginia, USA

Renna Nouwairi
University of Virginia, USA

Citizen Sampling and Paper-Based Microfluidics; Covid-19 Analysis
Nicole Pamme (Lead Presenter)
Stockholm University, SWEDEN

Wearable Sensors for Point-of-Care Diagnostics
Ala'aldeen Al-Halhouli (Lead Presenter)
German Jordanian University, JORDAN

Workshop 3: Sensor Integration for Microsystems
Microsystems integrated with sensors for reliable, reproducible, and versatile assay platforms, including integrated plasmonic biosensors, electrochemical of cell secretions and analysis of tissue slices with microfluidic stimulation.

Q&A Discussion:
Sunday, 23 October, 20:00 - 21:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Sunday, 23 October, 14:00 - 15:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Sunday, 23 October, 05:00 - 06:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Automating Classification of Cellular Phenotypes by Coupling Impedance Cytometry with Supervised Machine Learning
Nathan Swami (Lead Presenter)
University of Virginia, USA

Liquid Metal-Enabled Soft Electromechanical Actuators in Microchannels
Shi-Yang Tang
University of Birmingham, UK

Immunoassay Biosensors Based on Mechanically Induced Trapping of Molecular Interactions (MITOMI)
Jose L Garcia-Cordero
Roche Institute for Translational Bioengineering, SWITZERLAND

Liquid Metal-Based Composites for Sensing in Microchannels
Xuechang Zhou
Shenzhen University, CHINA

Workshop 4: Control of Surface Chemistry and Wetting (New)
In this workshop we will provide a tutorial on the principles of surface chemistry control, including principles of surface energy and hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity, common methods of surface functionalization such as silanization and dip coating. Applications will be drawn from areas such as droplet microfluidics, capillary valves, and similar.

Q&A Discussion:
Saturday, 22 October, 22:00 - 23:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Saturday, 22 October, 16:00 - 17:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Saturday, 22 October, 07:00 - 08:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Feng Shen
Shanghai Jiao Ton University, CHINA

Stefano Begolo
ALine, Inc, USA

Ya-Yu Chiang
National Chung Hsing University, TAIWAN

Workshop 5: Flow Modeling and Visualization in Microfluidics
The aim of this workshop is to introduce some of the most popular flow visualization and modeling tools, particularly Particle image velocimetry (PIV), particle tracking velocimetry (PTV), and multi-physics simulation with finite element method (FEM). The participants will learn the fundamental knowledge and tools for performing 2D PIV and 2D/3D PTV analyses on their own microfluidic systems. Here, free tools such as PIVLab and DefocusTracker will be used to help the participants to gain hand-on experiences. For modeling, the participants will be introduced to the fundamental aspects of theoretical microfluidics as well as to popular commercial or free software packages, which will be introduced with practical examples.

Q&A Discussion:
Sunday, 23 October, 19:00 - 20:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Sunday, 23 October, 13:00 - 14:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Sunday, 23 October, 04:00 - 05:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Numerical Simulation for Microfluidic Manipulation of Particles
Guoqing Hu (Lead Presenter)
Zhejiang University, CHINA

Particle-Based Simulation for Complex Biofluids at Microscale
Xuejin Li
Zhejiang University, CHINA

Multiscale Simulation for Microfluidics
Xin Bian
Zhejiang University, CHINA

Flow Visualization of Micro-/Nanoparticles
Xu Zheng
Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA

Workshop 6: 3D Printing and 3D Bioprinting
3D printing converts computer-assisted design (CAD) into a three-dimensional physical object and is particularly useful for the fabrication of non-planar microfluidic devices or for generating open-source laboratory tools. The workshop will introduce 3D printing, the types of 3D printers and how they can be used to create fluidic devices. Printing in biopolymers, with or without cells, will also be discussed. Attendees will leave with an overview of the current state of the field, opportunities and limitations, and whether 3D printing is right for their application.

Q&A Discussion:
Saturday, 22 October, 17:00 - 18:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Saturday, 22 October, 11:00 - 12:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Saturday, 22 October, 02:00 - 03:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Hydrogel Materials for 3D Printing
Xuetao Shi
South China University of Technology, CHINA

3D Printing in Glass and Polymers
Dorothea Helmer
NeptunLab, GERMANY

Stereolithography Printing with Common Acrylate-Based Resins, including Printing Master Molds and Devices
Bastien Venzac
Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems, French National Centre for Scientific Research, FRANCE

Designing and Applying 3D Printed Systems for Cell and Tissue Culture
Yi-Chin Toh
University of Queensland, AUSTRALIA

Workshop 7: Microfluidics for Immunology
Immunology is the hot new area for engineers and physical scientists. Here, attendees get an introduction to the foundations of immunological terminology most commonly studied by microfluidic scientists and hear about state-of-the-art use of microfluidics to model the immune system, including in organs-on-chip and models of blood and lymphatic vasculature, and to provide advanced analysis of immune function.

Q&A Discussion:
Sunday, 23 October, 22:00 - 23:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Sunday, 23 October, 16:00 - 17:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Sunday, 23 October, 07:00 - 08:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Immune-Competent Microphysiological Models; Profiling of Immunometabolism and Inflammation On-Chip
Qasem Ramadan
Alfaisal University, SAUDI ARABIA

Microscale Models of Lymphatics and Immunity
Katharina Maisel
University of Maryland, USA

Microfluidic Analysis of Immune Cell Signalling
Hang Lu
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Microfluidics for Single Cell Analysis of Immune Cells
Jurgen Tel
Eindhoven Institute of Technology, NETHERLANDS

Workshop 8: Liquid Biopsies
Types of circulating biomarkers in liquid biopsies, their significance to disease diagnostics, methods to isolate, expand and omic-analysis of these markers.

Q&A Discussion:
Sunday, 23 October, 21:00 - 22:00 Chinese Standard Time (Hangzhou)
Sunday, 23 October, 15:00 - 16:00 Central European Summer Time (Berlin)
Sunday, 23 October, 06:00 - 07:00 Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco)

Yao Lu (Lead Presenter)
Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA

Qihui Shi
Fudan University, CHINA

Rongke Gao
China University of Petroleum (Huadong), CHINA

Yanling Song
Xiamen University, CHINA