2023 Grodins Research Symposium

An event for Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. students of the
University of Southern California to showcase their research!
All Ph.D. students are required to present a poster or podium at the event.
Friday, April 7, 2023 | 8:00am to 5:30pm
USC Michelson Center For Convergent Bioscience
(MCB) - 1st Floor
1002 West Childs Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089

Keynote Speaker
Abraham ‘Abe’ Lee, Ph.D.Chancellor’s Professor, Biomedical Engineering University of California, Irvine Director, NSF I/UCRC Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM) |

Abraham (Abe) P. Lee is Professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
He is 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 to 2020. Prior to UCI, he was at the National Cancer Institute and was a program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA (1999-2001), Senior Technology Advisor at National Cancer Institute (NCI) and a group leader with Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL).
Over the years, Dr. Lee has pioneered research in applying microfluidics to biomedical applications, and currently 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 owns 55 issued US patents and is author of over 130 journals articles. Professor Lee was awarded the 2009 Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize and is an elected 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
Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) is a type of immunotherapy that involves the processing of blood from a donor to isolate immune cells (e.g. T cells) for genetic manipulation followed by reinfusion of the cells into patients. Specifically for CAR T cell therapy, genetic coding material (e.g. DNA, mRNA) is inserted 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. This process that starts from blood drawn from one person and ends with specialized engineered cells delivered to the same 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 activation and expansion, and cell transfection. In this talk I will introduce two microfluidic platforms in my lab, one is the lateral cavity acoustic transducer (LCAT) and the other is droplet microfluidics. LCAT was used for processing blood samples, isolating T cells, transfecting T cells, and finally expanding T cells to scale up for treatment. Based on LCAT, we developed the acoustic electric shear orbiting poration (AESOP) device to uniformly deliver genetic cargo dosage into a large population of cells simultaneously.
Based on droplet microfluidics we constructed a single cell artificial antigen presenting cells (aAPCs) for T cell activation. By trapping single cells in microfluidic compartments, we are able to study the cell morphology and cell-cell communications to further understand immune cell activation and immune cell synapses.
Thank You to Our Sponsors!




We welcome companies, organizations and individuals who are interested in sponsoring our research symposium. Not only does it provide significant help in the quality of our event, but it also provides great rewards and incentives to the sponsors as well.
Please take a look at our sponsorship packet for thorough information. We appreciate your support!
Abstract Submission
Deadline: February 28th, 2023
***
Printed Poster
Deadline: April 7, 2023
Submission Deadline: February 28th, 2023
Format: PDF
File Name: Last Name_First Name_Category
Categories:
-Signals and Systems
-Cell and Tissue Engineering
-Devices and Diagnostics Technology
-Imaging
-Neuroengineering
Click Here To Submit Your Abstract
Title Should Be Typed in Initial Caps
Authors: List all authors and their affiliations (all should be entered in the author section or they will be not be in t he author index), adding an asterisk after the presenting author's name on your abstract (e.g. John Doe*).
The scientific abstract which follows should contain the same type of information as is contained in a full paper, although on a limited and condensed scale. The completed abstract should have a title, introduction, materials and methods, results, and conclusion section. Acknowledgements and references sections are optional. The length of the actual abstract must be no more than 1 printed page and must conform to the established margins (0.75 inch margin on top; 0.75 in margins on the left, right, and bottom). All sections which follow these instructions should be printed in Times New Roman, 11 point font. Section headers should appear in bold, and the text which follows in each section should be unbold.
Introduction: This section should include background information in order to introduce the current study, its importance to the literature, and its impact on society. The introduction should also clearly characterize the scientific question being investigated. This section should be written using Time New Roman, 11 point font.
Materials and Methods: Materials and Methods used in the study should be briefly explained in this section. For example, what essential reagents were used, what patients or tissue samples were studied, what special techniques were applied and how, and what type of study was performed. When relevant, information regarding statistical comparisons should be provided. This section should also demonstrate how the methods used by the authors will address the questions presented in the introduction sections. This section should be written using Times New Roman, 11 point font.
Results and Discussion: This section should include a summary of any significant positive and negative results, and should be presented as concisely as possible. Most abstracts are rejected because of inadequate data. To state "results will be presented" is uninformative and of little value. Make sure any conclusions you later reach are supported by the data presented here. This section can also include one embedded figure or table to support the presented results. Be sure that the figure table is clearly labeled, that its caption is informative, and that the data presented in the figure is referred to within the abstract test. This section should be written using, Times New Roman, 11 point front.
Figures: Be sure that the figure/table is clearly labeled, that its caption is informative, and that the data presented in the figure is referred to within the abstract text. The figure caption should be written using Times New Roman, 10 point bold font.
Conclusions: Conclusions should be stated concisely and should state the implications and significance of the data presented. Do not introduce or defend concepts not considered in the body of the abstract. This section could also include recommendations for future studies. This section should be written using Times New Roman, 11 point font.
Acknowledgements: (Optional) Please acknowledge people or funding sources who may have contributed to the successful completion of this research. This section should be written using Times New Roman, 11 point font.
References: (Optional) This section should include any references to published literature. If it is necessary to cite references, insert the primary author's name and initials followed by the abbreviated journal title, the year of publication, the volume number, and the page numbers. This section should be written using Times New Roman, 11 point font.
Poster printed and ready to present by April 7, 2023
Poster Presentation Formats
- Poster boards are provided by the BME Department at the symposium venue. You are responsible for printing your own poster.
- The poster boards provided are 4' wide by 3' high. They are foldable and contain three sections. The center section is 2' x 3'. The left and right sections are 1' x 3' each. You may use the full poster board, or just the center section if you wish.
Template
- The Microsoft PowerPoint template provided below is for a 4' x 3' poster. You may also prefer to use other software, such as Adobe Illustrator, for creating your poster.
Helpful Hints
- Make posters as self-explanatory as possible.
- Data should be clear and concise.
- Use photos, figures, diagrams and charts to illustrate pertinent points.
- Content should be large enough to be read 4' to 6' away. Do not use any font smaller than 24pt!
- Avoid abbreviations and acronyms without giving their full form.
- Limit captions to a couple of sentences.
- Organize illustrations and text using a grid (e.g. columns).
- It is not necessary to include a copy of your abstract on the poster.
- Do not simply enlarge your paper!
Please keep in mind that anything you present at the Symposium constitutes a public disclosure. This means you should consider removing all confidential information from the presentation if you are interested in patent protection and have not yet filed a patent application. For more information please read 'Have an Idea?' on the USC Stevens Center for Innovation website.
2023 Grodins Planning Committee

Committee Advisor
William Yang, Associate Director, Graduate Affairs | E-mail: yangwill@usc.edu
Office
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
1042 Downey Way
Denney Research Center (DRB) 140
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1111
Telephone: (213) 740-0344
Published on October 27th, 2017
Last updated on April 20th, 2023