Zohora Iqbal PhD student

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 EngineeringBiology 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..

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