A manuscript co-authored by Ben Evans, assistant professor of physics, and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill appears in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The manuscript, “Biomimetic cilia arrays generate simultaneous pumping and mixing regimes,” describes biologically-relevant fluid flows which have been generated by a micro-scaled artificial cilia system. This work contributes to our understanding of the role of cilia in the human body and diseases of ciliary disfunction such as cystic fibrosis or situs inversus, as well as our ability to manipulate fluids on the microscale.
Evans and student Kelsey Lapenas will continue working on this line of research at Elon, attempting to integrate their novel biomimetic cilia array within a microfluidic system for application toward inexpensive and portable medical diagnostic equipment.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is one of the world’s most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serials, boasting a Thompson Reuters Impact Factor of 9.4 in 2009.