Shih-Kang Fan

Affiliations 

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University

Biography

Shih-Kang Fan received the B.S. degree from National Central University, Taiwan, in 1996, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

Between 2004 and 2012, he was an Assistant Professor and then an Associate Professor with the Institute of Nanotechnology and the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Since 2012, he has become an Associate Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan. His research interest focuses on electro-microfluidics.

Dr. Fan was a recipient of several national young investigator awards, including the “TBF Chair in Biotechnology” from Taiwan Bio-Development Foundation in 2014, “Young Scholar’s Creativity Award” from Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship in 2014, the “Research Award for Junior Research Investigators” from Academia Sinica in 2012, and the “Ta-You Wu Memorial Award” from National Science Council in 2011.

Abstract

Constructing in vitro Microenvironment on an Electro-Microfluidic Platform

Shih-Kang Fan

Synthesis and assembly of multi-functional, heterogeneous, and encoded microcomponents, or building blocks, are essential to engineering hierarchical, complex, and three-dimensional structures. The elaborately organized architectures devise metamaterials that hold new physical properties unusual in nature or artificial tissues that reappear physiological functions by imitating natural and biological arrangements.

Here we demonstrate synthesis and assembly of microcomponents by electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) and dielectrophoresis (DEP) on a robotic electro-microfluidic platform. The platform is capable of (1) driving different droplets of hydrogel prepolymers before cross-linking, (2) arranging particles or cells in the droplets, and (3) forming microcomponents by cross-linking droplets in different shapes.

In the presentation, we will demonstrate the synthesis and assembly of different hydrogel microcomponents containing different dyes and particles. The heterogeneous structures with cell adhesive GelMA (gelatin methacrylate) and non-adhesive PEG-DA (Poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate) surfaces are prepared for cell culture. The culture of fibroblasts NIH/3T3, neonatal mouse cardiomyocyte, and endothelia HUVEC on the engineered structures synthesized and assembled on the robotic electro-microfluidic platform will be reported.