Wei Liao

Wei is a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science who uses microfluidic technology to study an important but often neglected player of neurodegenerative disease, the blood-brain-barrier (BBB). She uses engineered microfluidic tissue culture devices to recapitulate the BBB microarchitecture in vivo with an approach normally called organ-on-a-chip (OOC). OOC platforms are microfluidic cell culture chips that simulate the activities, mechanics and physiological response of major functional units of human organs. In order to achieve live time-lapse fluorescence microscopy of these extremely fragile cells during the BBB vasculogenesis process, Wei used MATLAB to develop a rapid and robust camera and microscope control strategy which minimizes phototoxicity during the imaging. She has also usedMATLAB SimBiology to understand the temporal dynamics of different forms of vascular endothelial growth factor reactions with the extracellular matrix as they produce different BBB capillary morphogenesis effects. Wei earned a BS in engineering at Tsinghua University, China.