Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas, Director

ResearcherID
Google Scholar
ORCID iD iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6283-8210

EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE


RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Lapizco-Encinas’s research interests are in the multidisciplinary area of microfluidics, focusing on cell and macromolecule manipulation with linear and nonlinear electrokinetic methods (dielectrophoresis, electrophoresis, and electroosmosis). Her current research projects deal with the application of dielectrophoresis (iDEP) and non-antiperiodic nonlinear electrophoresis (NANEP) for the manipulation, concentration, detection, and high-resolution separation of a wide array of bioparticles such as macromolecules, proteins, DNA, bacteriophages, viruses, bacteria, yeast, microalgae, and mammalian cells. Research efforts involve mathematical modeling and numerical simulations to unveil the fundamentals of microscale electrokinetic techniques, combined with microdevice experimentation to extend their practical applications in diagnostics, therapeutics, and bioseparations.


BRIEF CV

Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas is from Cd. Obregón Sonora, a small city in Northwest Mexico. She holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tecnológico de Sonora (1996) and Tecnológico de Celaya (1998), respectively. She came to the US in 1998 as a Fulbright Scholar and started her research on miniaturization and microfluidics during her PhD studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she worked toward the development of a micro-chromatograph under the supervision of Dr. Neville Pinto, graduating in January 2003. In February 2003 she joined the Microfluidics Department at Sandia National Laboratories as a post-doctoral researcher, where she worked on insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) for the concentration and separation of microbes from water. At Sandia she had the opportunity to work with Eric Cummings, one of the inventors of iDEP. Her work at Sandia led to the first viability assessment for bacteria employing iDEP, producing foundational publications that remain highly cited in the field.

From 2005 to 2011 she was a professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey and Cinvestav-Monterrey in Mexico, where she established a research group on microscale bioseparations with a focus on electrokinetics. In 2011 she came to the US and joined Tennessee Tech as an Associate Professor. In 2012, Dr. Lapizco-Encinas joined the Rochester Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor and Founding Faculty member of the Biomedical Engineering Department, where she was promoted to Full Professor in 2019. Her current research efforts are focused on the development of electrokinetic techniques for the manipulation of bioparticles.

Her work includes both experiments and mathematical modeling of electrokinetic phenomena. Her group has worked with proteins, DNA, bacteriophages, bacteria, yeast, microalgae, and mammalian and stem cells. Her main research objective is to develop electrokinetic-based microdevices that answer the needs of many different applications, such as concentrating DNA for genomics, protein purification and separation for biopharmaceuticals, microorganism manipulation and detection for food safety and environmental monitoring, and cell sorting for clinical diagnostics.

The research findings obtained by her group have been published in top international journals such as Analytical Chemistry, Lab on a Chip, Electrophoresis, TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Journal of Chromatography A, and Biosensors, among others. Her group has presented their results in over 170 presentations at international conferences such as the American Electrophoresis Society (AES) Annual Meeting, Microscale Bioseparations, SciX/FACSS, Gordon Research Conferences (GRC), and the International Symposium on Electro- and Liquid Phase-Separation Techniques (ITP). Her work has received more than 5,000 citations with an h-index of 37 on Google Scholar. Since 2019 she has served as Editor-in-Chief for the journal Electrophoresis (Wiley). She is an inducted Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences (AMC) and recipient of the 2021 RIT Board of Trustees Scholarship Award, the 2024–2025 AES Distinguished Service Award, and the 2023 RIT Provost’s Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award.


SELECTED HONORS, AWARDS, AND RECOGNITIONS


RECENT RESEARCH AWARDS OBTAINED BY RIT STUDENTS UNDER MY GUIDANCE


SYNERGISTIC ACTIVITIES


RECENT INVITED TALKS AND SEMINARS


REVIEWER FOR THE FOLLOWING JOURNALS (27 DISTINCT JOURNALS)

Principal Investigator

Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas

Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas

Professor and Founding Faculty
Editor-in-Chief, ELECTROPHORESIS (2019–2025)
Microscale Bioseparations Laboratory
Biomedical Engineering Department
Rochester Institute of Technology
Email: bhlbme@rit.edu
Phone: 585-475-2773
Fax: 585-475-5041