Jury:

• Dr. Christian Bergaud (Rapporteur, LAAS)
• Dr. Stephanie Descroix (Rapporteur, Institute Curie)
• Dr. Xavier Gidrol (Rapporteur, CEA)
• Pr. Eric Lartigau (Examinateur, Centre Oscar Lambret)
• Dr. Cécile Legallais (Examinatrice, BMBI)
• Pr. Hiroyuki Fujita (Invité, Tokyo City University)
• Pr. Dominique Collard (Garant, LIMMS)

Abstract:

Microtechnologies have a wide range of application fields in medicine as in the example of advance MEMS techniques, e.g. wearable, injectable, implantable, prosthesis, surgical and imaging devices. Such technologies find themselves a place in health monitoring devices, drug delivery systems, implantable sensors, pacemakers, defibrillators, neuronal sensor arrays, endoscopes and many others as medical applications. These devices often do not need any molecular or cellular analysis within the bodily fluids. Microfluidics and bioMEMS techniques, on the other hand, provides versatile and sensitive tools for diagnostic purposes or therapeutic actions by developing tools such as microarrays, total analysis systems, and organ-on-a-chip devices.

During my graduate studies, I worked on integrating biological samples in microtechnologies, such as MEMS and microfluidics. The initial target of this integration was using biological samples for engineering purposes. A nano-transport system, as an example, was based on kinesin motor protein to sort and transport target molecules. Similar attempts allowed me to handle biological samples with high precision and practical MEMS integration. Starting with my post-doctoral studies, interdisciplinary collaboration experiences (with biologists and chemists) provided a different point-of-view to tackle with more biology-related questions. An example was detecting tau protein and distinguishing among their isoforms and mutations. Similar goals of detecting biological samples required high-level and well-optimized MEMS devices and assay protocols. Successful biological sample detection tasks allowed applying MEMS to medicine.

After moving to Lille, being in a biological and clinical environment with an engineering background allows me to pursue MEMS solutions to biomedical applications in a well-defined interdisciplinary team formed of biologists, clinicians and engineers. I plan two action axes for the future. The first one is detecting the metastatic potential of cancer cells in circulation by employing advance MEMS. This axis targets single-cell biophysical analysis to distinguish cancer cells with different properties which leads to a cancer cell atlas. The second axis of action aims for improving the awareness of biologists and clinicians on microtechnologies. I target providing microtechnological solutions to their problems for potential breakthroughs.

Cagatay Tarhan