Welcome to M.D.-ERL

Our group is interested in the development of medical diagnostic microdevices with a primary focus on human blood electrokinetics. Our goals are to develop portable, point of care tools that can provide rapid, quantitative results for disease diagnosis and monitoring. Our hope is that treatment methods can become more streamlined and better tailored to the patient with the additional, easy to obtain information from microdevices. Currently, the medical diagnosis of blood disorders rely on expensive and time-consuming procedures that are outsourced to special analytical laboratories. Our lab is studying emerging electrokinetic microdevice technology, which has the potential to replace off-line lab analysis with point-of-care devices that could provide the patient with positive or negative results, along with quantitative information on disease progression, in less than 5 minutes. Outgrowths of the new technology might include portable diagnostic devices for acute diseases or monitoring of chronic diseases, both of which could be conveniently used in remote geographical areas, where traditional diagnostic laboratories are inaccessible.

The information on this website is tailored for students who are interested in becoming involved in this research as well as colleagues who may wish to know more about M.D.-ERL research. If you have any questions, please email minerick@mtu.edu.

Applications for graduate school are available via: http://www.mtu.edu/gradschool/

Our Director

Since beginning at MTU as an Associate Professor in 2009, Dr. Adrienne Minerick has built a vibrant, productive research team. Her team has published on blood cell electrokinetics and microdevices, see current progress here.   She is passionate about undergraduate research and creating inclusive environments for all students.  She has served in executive board positions for the AES Electrophoresis Society and American Society of Engineering Education to influence this nationally.

News / Current Accolades

November 2014 - Hwi Yong Lee Receives Ph.D.

Congratulations to Hwi Yong Lee for completing his Ph.D. with dissertation titled “New Microfluidic System to Increase Robustness of Electrode Performance to Support Development of a Point-of-Care Hematocrit Device”.

September 2014 - Maryam Khaksari earns Travel Award

Maryam Khaksari was awarded with a travel award from the Biotechnology Reseach Center to attend FACSS Science Exchange (SciX)

July 2014 - Chung-ja Yang Receives Ph.D.

Congratulations to Chung-ja Yang (CJ) for completing her Ph.D. with her dissertation titled “Alternating Current Dielectrophoresis Of Core-Shell Nanoparticles: Experiments And Comparison With Theory”.