Abraham Lee's Biography

Abraham Lee, Chancellor’s Professor, Biomedical Engineering & Director, Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics, University of California-Irvine

Abraham (Abe) P. Lee is Chancellor’s Professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and MAE at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He served as department chair for BME from 2010-2019. He is currently Director of the NSF I/UCRC “Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics” (CADMIM). Dr. Lee served as Editor-in-Chief for the Lab on a Chip journal from 2017-2020. Prior to UCI, he was Senior Technology Advisor at National Cancer Institute (NCI), Program Manager in the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA (1999-2001), and a group leader with Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL). Dr. Lee’s current research focuses on integrated microfluidic systems for precision medicine including liquid biopsy, microphysiological systems, cell engineering, and immunotherapy. His research has contributed to the founding of several start-up companies. He is inventor of over 60 issued US patents and is author of over 130 journals articles. Professor Lee was awarded the 2009 Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize and is fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).

Vein-to-Vein Microfluidic Engineering for Cell Therapies

Monday, 12 December 2022 at 15:30

Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-12 15:30:002022-12-12 16:30:00Europe/LondonVein-to-Vein Microfluidic Engineering for Cell TherapiesLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2022 in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) involves the processing of blood from a donor to isolate T lymphocytes (T cells) for genetic manipulation followed by reinfusion of the cells into patients. The genetic manipulation is carried out by inserting genetic coding material (e.g. DNA, mRNA) into the T cells to express chimeric antigen receptors to target biomarkers of cancer cells and trigger an activated immune response towards the tumor of interest. If the cells are from the same patient it is considered autologous and if from a different donor it is allogenic. Also, different immune cells can be used in addition to T cells, e.g., NK cells, dendritic cells, and CD4+ helper T cells. This process that starts from blood from the vein of one person and ends with specialized engineered cells delivered to the vein of a patient includes multiple tedious and costly steps, and can require a long time that the patient may not have. Microfluidics techniques are being developed that can address all steps of this cell manufacturing process, including cell harvesting, cell isolation, cell expansion, and cell transfection, and has the potential to drastically reduce cost and processing times. In this presentation, I will introduce our microfluidic platforms based on the lateral cavity acoustic transducer for processing blood samples, isolating T cells, transfecting T cells, and finally expanding T cells to scale up for treatment. The LCAT device has been used to isolate leukocytes from whole blood. In particular, I will introduce the acoustic electric shear orbiting poration (AESOP) device that is able to uniformly deliver genetic cargo dosage into a large population of cells simultaneously in comparison with conventional transfection techniques. I will also introduce an another microfluidic method to construct artificial antigen presenting cells for T cell activation.

Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-12 00:00:002022-12-14 00:00:00Europe/LondonLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2022Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2022 in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

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