VPREDGE Award for Meritorious Technology/Science – Office of the Provost
Connie Chang
Connie Chang has obtained the Vice President of Investigation, Financial Progress and
Graduate Training Award for Meritorious Technologies/Science, which is supplied to an
MSU school member who has created a person or much more significant technological/scientific contributions
with prospective for transfer to the personal sector. The award carries a $2,500 honorarium.
Chang, associate professor in the Office of Chemical and Organic Engineering
in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson Higher education of Engineering, is recognised as an expert in the area
of microfluidics, which will involve utilizing smaller “chips” etched with little channels to
manipulate 1000’s of droplets of fluid for each next, with a wide variety of apps
in biomedical engineering and other fields. Since coming to MSU in 2013, she has acquired
the Countrywide Science Foundation’s prestigious Career award and big grants from the
Office of Protection, NSF and National Institutes of Overall health in assistance of her perform.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Chang drew upon her microfluidics expertise
to invent and refine a new detection technological know-how that rivals the sensitivity of “gold
standard” PCR screening though being speedier and cheaper. Employing a self-contained microfluidic
chip, the engineering detects incredibly lower stages of the virus in a saliva sample. Chang
worked with MSU’s Know-how Transfer Office environment to license the technological know-how and aid start
ULTSafety Inc., a biomedical startup to commercialize the device, which can be employed
to detect other viruses and pathogens. The technologies has yielded a few provisional
patent apps.
“There is probably no much better illustration of Dr. Chang’s community services-minded approach
to science than her response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” explained Quinton King, senior
technological know-how supervisor in MSU’s Technological innovation Transfer Place of work. “Her perform at MSU is transformative
in that it connects the theoretical to the functional with the ever-current goal
of increasing life.”
