The Department of Mechanical Engineering is pleased to welcome Dr. Soojung Claire Hur who will join the Department of Mechanical Engineering as Assistant Professor in summer 2018. From 2015 to 2018 Dr. Hur will hold interim appointment as Assistant Research Professor in Mechanical Engineering.
Dr. Hur completed her PhD in at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles in 2011. Since 2011 Dr. Hur has held the prestigious appointment of Rowland Junior Fellow and Principal Investigator at Harvard University where she directs the Hur Lab on micro-Fluidic Biophysics.
Dr. Hur’s primary research goals are in development of microfluidic platforms to understand complex fluid dynamics principles and to translate acquired knowledge into practical applications. In particular, she is interested in studying single-cell mechanics because not only physical properties impact cellular functions but also cellular functions can be regulated and manipulated by physical environmental cues. To study veiled correlations between cellular functions and their physical phenotypes, differential inertial microfluidic devices are utilized because, using such systems, one can (i) precisely and distinctively positions cells in flow based on their intrinsic physical properties, and/or (ii) isolate and maintain identical populations of cells in the designated regions of the channel during the courses of well-controlled external stimuli. Collectively, her research group endeavors to create innovative techniques that have great potential for high-throughput target cell detection, cost-effective cell separation, and sequential multimolecular delivery that are useful for oncology, immunology, gene therapy, tissue engineering as well as regenerative medicine.
Target cells are purified from a heterogeneous solution using microscale vortices for subsequent intracellular deliveries of various combinations of drugs, macromolecules, genes, and proteins. The combinatorial effects of various molecules on diseased cells can be analyzed to identify better therapeutic strategies.
We are thrilled to have Dr. Hur join the Whiting School of Engineering faculty!