WEDNESDAY, March 21, 2007
Time: 7:30 PM
OCNPS 200

Title: Dripping, Jetting, Drops and Wetting: the Magic of Microfluidics

David A. Weitz
Department of Physics
Harvard University

This talk will discuss some of the new opportunities that arise by precisely controlling fluid flow and mixing using microfluidic devices. These devices take advantage of the advances in computer technology, but apply them to the control of fluid flow. The talk will describe the remarkable instabilities that can be used to create very small droplets and will show how these can be used to fabricate new classes of materials. The talk will also describe how the exquisite control afforded by the microfluidic devices provides the enabling technology to use droplets as nanoreactors for very high throughput combinatorial screening of chemical reactions for drug discovery and validation.