Robert (R. Michael) Michael van Dam, PhD

Dr. Michael van Dam's research group is interested in novel microfluidic technologies and automated systems for solving problems in cancer research and molecular imaging. A major focus of the group is on development of technologies to make tracers for positron emission tomography (PET) more widely available to research scientists and clinicians by reducing the complexity and cost of their production.

The lab has recently designed, built, and characterized a prototype chemical synthesis platform that supports development, optimization and the transition to routine production of a diverse array of PET tracers, and it has developed a compact microscale liquid handling ÒchipÓ that electronically controls droplets of reagents to carry out the chemical synthesis of PET tracers suitable for in vivo imaging. Current efforts are aimed at using automation to transform the proof-of-concept ÒchipÓ into a user-friendly prototype system, developing an intuitive software interface for operating the system, devising ways to interface the device with miniature purification and quality control systems and developing miniature analytical/imaging techniques to improve the ÒchipÓ design and study fundamental microscale chemistry phenomena.

Using different microfluidic technologies the group is also developing a high-throughput robotic system for protein expression analysis with single cell resolution of patient samples to study and diagnose tumor heterogeneity. Research projects are very multidisciplinary in nature and the van Dam lab collaborates extensively with other groups within and outside of UCLA.

Ding H, Sadeghi S, Shah GJ, Chen S, Keng PY, Kim CJ, van Dam RM. Accurate dispensing of volatile reagents on demand for chemical reactions in EWOD chips. Lab Chip. 2012 Sep 21;12(18):3331-40. doi: 10.1039/c2lc40244k. Epub 2012 Jul 23.

Keng PY, Chen S, Ding H, Sadeghi S, Shah GJ, Dooraghi A, Phelps ME, Satyamurthy N, Chatziioannou AF, Kim CJ, van Dam RM, Kim CJ. Micro-chemical synthesis of molecular probes on an electronic microfluidic device. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 17;109(3):690-5. Epub 2011 Dec 30

Liu K, Lepin EJ, Wang MW, Guo F, Lin WY, Chen YC, Sirk SJ, Olma S, Phelps ME, Zhao XZ, Tseng HR, Michael van Dam R, Wu AM, Shen CK. Microfluidic-based 18F-labeling of biomolecules for immuno-positron emission tomography. Mol Imaging. 2011 Jun;10(3):168-76, 1-7.

Sun J, Masterman-Smith MD, Graham NA, Jiao J, Mottahedeh J, Laks DR, Ohashi M, DeJesus J, Kamei K, Lee KB, Wang H, Yu ZT, Lu YT, Hou S, Li K, Liu M, Zhang N, Wang S, Angenieux B, Panosyan E, Samuels ER, Park J, Williams D, Konkankit V, Nathanson D, van Dam RM, Phelps ME, Wu H, Liau LM, Mischel PS, Lazareff JA, Kornblum HI, Yong WH, Graeber TG, Tseng HR. A microfluidic platform for systems pathology: multiparameter single-cell signaling measurements of clinical brain tumor specimens. Cancer Res. 2010 Aug 1;70(15):6128-38. Epub 2010 Jul 14

Cho JS, Taschereau R, Olma S, Liu K, Chen YC, Shen CK, van Dam RM, Chatziioannou AF. Cerenkov radiation imaging as a method for quantitative measurements of beta particles in a microfluidic chip. Phys Med Biol. 2009 Nov 21;54(22):6757-71. Epub 2009 Oct 21