Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas, Director

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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 electrokinetic methods (dielectrophoresis, electrophoresis and electroosmosis). Her current research projects deal with the application of dielectrophoresis for the manipulation, concentration and detection of a wide array of bioparticles such as from macromolecules, microbes, and mammalian cells. Research efforts involve mathematical modeling to unveil the fundamentals of microscale electrokinetic techniques and experimentation to extend their practical applications.


BRIEF CV

Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas is from Cd. Obregón Sonora, a small city in Northwest Mexico. She holds a BSc and MSc degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tecnologico de Sonora (1996) and Tecnologico de Celaya (1998), respectively. She came to the US in 1998 and started her research on miniaturization and microfluidics during her PhD studies at University of Cincinnati, where she worked toward the development of a micro-chromatograph under the supervision of Dr. Neville Pinto. She graduated 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 the inventors of iDEP. Her work at Sandia led to first viability assessment for bacteria employing iDEP.

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 focus on electrokinetics. In 2011 she came to the US and joined Tennessee Tech, as an Associate Professor. Dr. Lapizco-Encinas is now a Professor at the Biomedical Engineering Department at Rochester Institute of Technology. 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, bacteria, yeast, microalgae and mammalian cells. Her main research objective is to develop electrokinetic-based microdevices that would answer the needs of many different applications, such as: concentrating DNA for genomics, protein purification and separation for biopharmaceuticals, microorganisms manipulation and detection for food safety and environmental monitoring, etc.

The research findings obtained by her group have been published in important international journals such as lab on a chip, Electrophoresis, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, among others. Her group has presented their results in numerous international conferences such as: American Electrophoresis Society Annual Meeting, Microscale Bioseparations, Meeting of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies, GRC conference Microfluidics, Physics & Chemistry Of, International Symposium on Capillary Electroseparation Techniques, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, among others. She is a reviewer for several international Journals. Since 2019 she serves as Editor-in-Chief for the Journal Electrophoresis.



SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS


SYNERGISTIC ACTIVITIES


RECENT INVITED TALKS AND SEMINARS


REVIEWER FOR THE FOLLOWING JOURNALS

Principal Investigator

Dr. Blanca H. Lapizco Encinas

Professor
Editor-in-Chief, ELECTROPHORESIS Microscale Bioseparations Laboratory
Biomedical Engineering Department
Rochester Institute of Technology
Email: bhlbme@rit.edu
Phone: 585-475-2773
Fax: 585-475-5041