Biomedical Engineering

The Biomedical Engineering program at CSB brings together four different labs (Lee, Im, Castro and Weissleder) interested in medical applications of next generations technologies. Members of the Program meet weekly to discuss the latest research, plan future experiments, review the literature and interact with other groups. Some of the innovative technologies developed to date are shown below.

Miniaturized NMR Systems

Applying microfabrications and microelectronics, we have miniaturized the entire NMR system into portable device.
PMID: 23835814, 18607350

Clinical DMR (diagnostic magnetic resonance)

This third generation DMR system automatically calibrates measurement settings, and features a user-friendly interface.
PMID: 21346169, 21547317

New types of magnetic nanoparticles

Different types of magnetic nanoparticles are synthesized to improve the sensitivity of magnetic detection (figure: a cluster of MnFe2O4 particles encased in a silica shell).
PMID: 21953810, 21495138, 20859943, 19620715

Microfluidic chip for exosome analysis

This chip integrates pneumatic valves, membrance filters, and a microcoil. Exosomes are magnetically labeled on chip, and detected by NMR.
PMID: 23142818


Microfiltration device for exosome collection

The device directly filters whole bloods and collects extracellular vesicles. The filter sets are clamped by a pair of ring magnets.
PMID: 24295203


Nanoplasmonic exosome (nPLEX) sensor

The sensor contains nanohole arrays that sustain surface plasmon resonance. It detect exosomes in a label-free manner.
PMID: 24752081

Microfluidic cell sorter

Based on size separation, this device enriches CTCs from unprocessed whole bloods, and allows for on-chip culture and molecular profiling.
PMID: 23184773

Single cell capture system

The chip performs immunomagnetic sorting and size-based cell capture, to capture target cells and then perform molecular analyses on these cells.
PMID: 24404070, 24297935

Microfluidic chip for bacterial detection

This fluidic cartridge is used to detect and classify bacterial strains. PCR chambers, magnetic labeling channels and an NMR probe are integrated.
PMID: 23644570, 23612293

Self-assembled magnets

The device creates strong magnetic field gradients using the self-assembly of micrometer- sized permanent magnets.
PMID: 24404070, 20949198

MicroHall detector for magnetocytometry

Using micrometer-scale Hall sensors, the system detects magnetic moments of cells that are immunolabeled with magnetic nanoparticles.
PMID: 23495188, 22764208

Recent Publications

• Jeon J, Liu QJ, Woo H, Barth I, Choi Y, Sang LJ, Lee H

  Computationally Designed Nanobinders as Affinity Ligands in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications. J Am Chem Soc. 2025;147(35):32187-32198 - PMID: 40839867 - DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c11289

• Tran HL, Zheng W, Issadore DA, Im H, Cho YK, Zhang Y, Liu D, Liu Y, Li B, Liu F, Wong DTW, Sun J, Qian K, He M, Wan M, Zeng Y, Cheng K, Huang TJ, Chiu DT, Lee LP, Zheng L, Godwin AK, Kalluri R, Soper SA, Hu TY

  Extracellular Vesicles for Clinical Diagnostics: From Bulk Measurements to Single-Vesicle Analysis. ACS Nano. 2025;19(31):28021-28109 - PMID: 40720603 - PMCID: PMC12356129 - DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c00706

• Barth I, Lee H

  Nanophotonic sensing and label-free imaging of extracellular vesicles. Light Sci Appl. 2025;14(1):177 - PMID: 40295495 - PMCID: PMC12037801 - DOI: 10.1038/s41377-025-01866-2

• Kim YI, Lee C, Lee H, Park IJ

  Extracellular vesicles in colorectal cancer. Ann Coloproctol. 2025;41(5):379-392 - PMID: 41158051 - PMCID: PMC12569783 - DOI: 10.3393/ac.2025.00745.0106

• More publications ...

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