Research Theme:
Cellular & Molecular Engineering, Imaging and Computational Biology,
Research Interests:
Microfabrication; single cell sequencing; and image cytometry; technologies to evaluate blood quality; test immune cell function; personalize cancer therapies; expedite antimalarial drug development
Biography:
Dr. Hongshen Ma is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from UBC, master’s from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and PhD from Electrical Engineering at MIT. Dr. Ma’s research program aims to develop new technologies to interrogate and manipulate biological systems at the cellular scale with a specific focus on cytometry and cell separation. His work include the development of microfluidic devices to analyze cell deformability and to separate cells based on deformability.
These devices are being used to analyze the loss of red blood cell deformability as a biomarker in transfusion medicine and falciparum malaria, as well as the separation of circulating tumor cells from prostate cancer patients. Dr. Ma’s research also includes the development of machine learning algorithms for image cytometry, as well as technologies for image-based cell separation and single cell sequencing.