Dr Leslie Yeo
Dr Leslie Yeo is based at Monash's Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
His research into Microfluidics has the potential to improve the standard of living both in Australia, and overseas. It will also strengthen Australia’s position in bionanotechnology.
“Microfluidics has the potential to revolutionise a wide spectrum of sectors in society, from energy and water technologies to biopharmaceutical and medical diagnostics.”
The Group is investigating drug delivery, drug screening and diagnostic devices. The aim is to allow drugs to be discovered more cheaply and quickly and to be delivered more efficiently and effectively. Medical treatment and diagnosis should become more accessible and accurate. The result will be an increase in patient comfort, compliance and convenience. Quality of life for the patient will be enhanced and their standard of living will rise. Dr Yeo’s research focuses on developing novel ways to move fluids or manipulate particles at micron and nanometre scales using electric and acoustic fields. These microfluidic components are then integrated into lab-on-a-chip devices. These have applications in portable drug delivery, high throughput drug screening microarrays, point-of-care medical diagnostics and miniaturised biosensors. It was through his observation of the way fluids act when viewed at closer than a macroscopic level that Dr Yeo became interested in researching Microfluidics.
”Fluids behave very differently at micron and nanometre dimensions compared to that at the macroscopic dimensions we commonly encounter day-to-day.”
He and his team are investigating the underlying physics governing fluids and particles at these scales and hope to be able to design small scale devices as a result.
Those currently being developed in the Micro/Nanophysics Laboratory include:
- a portable pulmonary insulin delivery device;
- a rapid and sensitive miniaturised biosensor that would constitute an early warning detection system against bioterrorist threats;
- an epithelial cell sorting device for detecting cancerous activity,
- a portable continuous blood glucose monitoring system.
His work on biosensors is part of the Australian Government's Research Support for Counter-Terrorism programme. This research is intended to provide first response units with highly accurate monitoring of biological threats to ensure the safety of the general public. Commercialisation of this technology will be of immense benefit to industry. In particular, the biopharmaceutical industry and spin-off businesses will achieve early participation in this emerging and specialised market as they attempt to develop their own devices.
Dr Yeo has collaborated with researchers from a wide range of disciplines at Monash, and from other national and international institutions, to help develop this technology. Associate Professor James Friend and Dr Yeo established the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory and there are close links with Associate Professor Mibel Aguilar (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology), Dr Patrick Perlmutter (Chemistry), Dr Adam Mechler (Chemistry), Dr Prabhakar Ranganathan (Mechanical Engineering), Dr Ravi Prakash Jagadeesham (Chemical Engineering), Dr Malin Premaratne (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), and Dr Kathy Traianedes (Australian Stem Cell Centre.)
Outside Monash, the team consults with other researchers from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, the Centre for Atom Optics and Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Swinburne University of Technology. Overseas, they work with experts from Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in the USA, Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology, and Mathematics, at Imperial College London, Applied Mathematics at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Tsinghua University, China.
Dr Yeo’s wider interests extend to the development of autonomous swimming microrobots for microsurgery. The Micro/Nanophysics Laboratory at Monash University is yet another example of the innovative impact nanotechnology will have on the community and the business world.
Selected Publications
Friend J.R., Yeo L.Y., Arifin D.R., Mechler A. (2008) Evaporative Self-Assembly Assisted Synthesis of Polymer Nanoparticles by Surface Acoustic Wave Atomization. Nanotechnology 19, 145301.
Yeo L.Y., Friend J.R., Arifin D.R. (2006) Electric Tempest in a Teacup - The Tea Leaf Analogy to Microfluidic Blood Plasma Separation. Appl. Phys. Lett. 89: 103516.
Yeo L.Y., Chang H-C. (2006) Electrowetting Films on Parallel Line Electrodes. Phys. Rev. E 73, 011605.
Yeo L.Y., Gagnon Z., Chang H-C. (2005) AC Electrospray Biomaterials Synthesis. Biomaterials 26(31), 6122–6128.
Yeo L.Y., Lastochkin D., Wang S-C., Chang H-C. (2004) A New AC Electrospray Mechanism by Maxwell-Wagner Polarization and Capillary Resonance. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92(13), 133902.
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