Navid Kashaninejad

• BSc, MSc, PhD
• DECRA at Griffith University

Interest in micropatterned surfaces with unidirectional wetting has grown significantly in recent years due to their unique ability to enable controlled liquid manipulation. This property is essential for diverse applications, including microfluidics, water harvesting, and anti-adhesion technologies. Despite extensive research on anisotropic wettin...

Re-entrant microstructured surfaces present a versatile platform for modulating cellular behavior by integrating topographical and chemical cues. However, the combined influence of cap geometry and surface material of re-entrant microstructures on cancer cell behavior remains insufficiently understood. In this study, we address this gap by investig...

The"Breathing Lung-on-a-Chip,"a novel microfluidic device featuring a stretchable membrane, replicates the natural expansion and contraction of the human lung. It provides a more realistic in-vitro platform to study respiratory diseases, particle deposition, and drug delivery mechanisms. This device enables investigations into the effects of inhale...

Varying the height of microstructures is crucial for tuning surface properties such as wettability, adhesion, and optical characteristics, which are essential in applications from microfluidics to biosensing. However, conventional techniques for fabricating height‐variable microstructures are often costly and labor‐intensive, involving multiple int...

Kinetic and selectivity of ionic conduction through polymer films is a key factor in the function of many systems including membrane technology, energy devices, sensors, and corrosion. Typically, the ionic conduction is accelerated by increasing the ionic strength of the electrolyte. However, counterintuitively, polymer films with very high electro...

Kinetic and selectivity of ionic conduction through polymer films is a key factor in the function of many systems including membrane technology, energy devices, sensors, and corrosion. Typically, the ionic conduction is accelerated by increasing the ionic strength of the electrolyte. However, counterintuitively, polymer films with very high electro...

Wearable biosensors have emerged as game changers in healthcare, particularly for cancer detection and monitoring. Continuously sensing physiological and biochemical markers improves cancer diagnosis and treatment significantly. Conventional diagnostic methods, such as biopsies and imaging, are invasive, expensive, and logistically challenging, lim...

Varying the height of microstructures is crucial for tuning surface properties such as wettability, adhesion, and optical characteristics, which are essential in applications from microfluidics to biosensing. Conventional techniques for fabricating height-variable microstructures on a single platform are often costly and labor-intensive, involving...

The evaporation dynamics of sessile droplets on re-entrant microstructures are critical for applications in microfluidics, thermal management, and self-cleaning surfaces. Re-entrant structures, such as mushroom-like shapes with overhanging features, trap air beneath droplets to enhance non-wettability. The present study examines the evaporation of...

Eukaryotic cells possess the remarkable ability to sense and respond to mechanical cues from their extracellular environment, a phenomenon known as mechanobiology, which is crucial for the proper functioning of biological systems. Micropillars have emerged as a prominent tool for quantifying cellular forces and have demonstrated versatility beyond...

Surface wettability, the interaction between a liquid droplet and the surface it contacts, plays a key role in influencing droplet behavior and flow dynamics. There is a growing interest in designing surfaces with tailored wetting properties across diverse applications. Advanced fabrication techniques that create surfaces with unique wettability of...

Surface wettability, the interaction between a liquid droplet and the surface it contacts, plays a key role in influencing droplet behavior and flow dynamics. There is a growing interest in designing surfaces with tailored wetting properties across diverse applications. Advanced fabrication tech-niques that create surfaces with unique wettability o...

The evaporation dynamics of sessile droplets on re-entrant microstructures are critical for applications in microfluidics, thermal management, and self-cleaning surfaces. Re-entrant structures, such as mushroom-like shapes with overhanging features, trap air beneath droplets to enhance non-wettability. The present study examines the evaporation of...

This study systematically explores the wetting characteristics of re‐entrant microstructures, focusing on the interplay between the unique geometries and material compositions. While silicon dioxide (SiO₂) re‐entrant microstructures are previously studied, this research pioneers the fabrication of silicon carbide (SiC) re‐entrant microstructures. T...

Microneedles hold remarkable potential for providing convenient and unique solutions for disease diagnosis and therapy. However, their integration into clinical practices has been slow, primarily due to the challenge of developing models that meet the criteria of a particular application. A comprehensive and systematic analysis of all aspects of mi...

Microstructured surfaces are renowned for their unique properties, such as waterproofing and low adhesion, making them highly applicable in the biomedical field. These surfaces play a crucial role in influencing cell response by mimicking the native microenvironment of biological tissues. In this study, we engineered a series of biomimetic micropat...

Microstructured surfaces are renowned for their unique properties, such as waterproofing and low adhesion, making them highly applicable in the biomedical field. These surfaces play a crucial role in influencing cell response by mimicking the native microenvironment of biological tissues. In this study, we engineered a series of biomimetic micropat...

Microstructured surfaces are renowned for their unique properties, such as waterproofing and low adhesion, making them highly applicable in the biomedical field. These surfaces play a crucial role in influencing cell response by mimicking the native microenvironment of biological tissues. In this study, we engineered a series of biomimetic micropat...

The “Breathing lung-on-a-chip,” a novel microfluidic device, mimics natural lung behavior with a stretchable membrane. It serves as a sophisticated model to study the effects of inhaled toxic particles on lung health and develop inhalation therapies. Uniform delivery of fluid-injected particles to cells is crucial, necessitating a thorough understa...

In the original publication [...]

Analyzing the wettability of stretchable microstructured surfaces is crucial in applications like soft robotics, wearable biosensors, stretchable electronics, and electronic skin (e-skin). However, it remains unclear how stretching affects the surface free energy (SFE) of these stretchable surfaces. In this article, stretchable microstructured surf...

Analyzing the wettability of stretchable microstructured surfaces is crucial in applications like soft robotics, wearable biosensors, stretchable electronics, and electronic skin (e‐skin). However, it remains unclear how stretching affects the surface free energy (SFE) of these stretchable surfaces. In this article, stretchable microstructured surf...

Cellular response to mechanical stimuli is a crucial factor for maintaining cell homeostasis. The interaction between the extracellular matrix and mechanical stress plays a significant role in organizing the cytoskeleton and aligning cells. Tools that apply mechanical forces to cells and tissues, as well as those capable of measuring the mechanical...

Cellular response to mechanical stimuli is a crucial factor for maintaining cell homeostasis. The interaction between extracellular matrix and mechanical stress plays a significant role in organ-izing the cytoskeleton and aligning cells. Tools that apply mechanical forces to cells and tissues, as well as those capable of measuring the mechanical pr...

Hydrogel microneedles are a promising technology for the delivery of different types of medicines locally and painlessly, as well as ISF extraction. As the hydrogel microneedles are inserted into the tissue, they swell and release drugs. To improve the effectiveness of this technology in delivering medicine at controlled and desirable doses and int...

Superamphiphobic Surfaces In article number 2201836, Nam‐Trung Nguyen, Navid Kashaninejad, and co‐workers describe the latest advances in the design and fabrication of re‐entrant microstructures for robust liquid‐repellent surfaces. These microstructures have significant applications in engineering superamphiphobic and omniphobic surfaces as they c...

Superhydrophobic surfaces have many interesting applications because of their self‐cleaning, waterproof, anti‐biofouling, anti‐corrosion, and low‐adhesion properties. Accordingly, numerous surfaces with hierarchical micro/nanostructures are designed and engineered to achieve superhydrophobicity. However, these surfaces have two major problems. Firs...

On-skin wearable systems for biofluid sampling and biomarker sensing can revolutionize the current practices in healthcare monitoring and personalized medicine. However, there is still a long path toward complete market adoption and acceptance of this fascinating technology. Accordingly, microfluidic science and technology can provide excellent sol...

Recently, there has been increasing attention toward inhaled nanoparticles (NPs) to develop inhalation therapies for diseases associated with the pulmonary system and investigate the toxic effects of hazardous environmental particles on human lung health. Taking advantage of microfluidic technology for cell culture applications, lung-on-a-chip devi...

Recently, there has been increasing attention toward inhaled nanoparticles (NPs) to develop in-halation therapies for diseases associated with the pulmonary system and investigate the toxic ef-fects of hazardous environmental particles on human lung health. Taking advantage of microfluidic technology for cell culture applications, lung-on-a-chip de...

Microfluidic solutions for biofluids handling in on-skin wearable systems

Manipulation and separation of submicron and nanoparticles are indispensable in many chemical, biological, medical, and environmental applications. Conventional technologies such as ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration, size exclusion chromatography, precipitation and immunoaffinity capture are limited by high cost, low resolution, low purity or th...

Electrical neuron stimulation holds promise for treating chronic neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease. The implementation of ultrathin, flexible electrodes that can offer noninvasive attachment to soft neural tissues is a breakthrough for timely, continuous, programable, and spatial stimulations. W...

Separation and detection of cells and particles in a suspension are essential for various applications, including biomedical investigations and clinical diagnostics. Microfluidics realizes the miniaturization of analytical devices by controlling the motion of a small volume of fluids in microchannels and microchambers. Accordingly, microfluidic dev...

Keeping the oxygen concentration at the desired physiological limits is a challenging task in cellular microfluidic devices. A good knowledge of affecting parameters would be helpful to control the oxygen delivery to cells. This study aims to provide a fundamental understanding of oxygenation process within a hydrogel-based microfluidic device cons...

Current chemotherapies can often kill fast-growing cancer cells, but are ineffective in destroying cancer stem cells (CSCs). This study aimed to investigate the effect of in vitro cell culture conditions on the features of lung adenocarcinoma cells (represented by A549, non-small cell type (NSCLC), cell lines) and the induction of cancer stem-like...

Electrical neuron stimulation holds promise for the treatment of several chronic neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease. The implementation of ultrathin, flexible electrodes, that can offer non-invasive attachment to soft neural tissues, is a breakthrough technology for timely, continuous, programabl...

Micro/nanofluidic drug delivery systems have attracted significant attention as they offer unique advantages in targeted and controlled drug delivery. Based on the desired application, these systems can be categorized into three different groups: in vitro, in situ and in vivo microfluidic drug delivery platforms. In vitro microfluidic drug delivery...

DOI: 10.1002/elps.202100126 The cover picture shows a sheathless three‐dimensional viscoelastic focusing of white blood cells, red blood cells, and cancer cells in a zigzag microchannel. Cell focusing is essential for the downstream cell separation, detection, counting or analysis. In general, an extended channel length is required to achieve effic...

Rapid isolation of white blood cells (WBCs) from whole blood is an essential part of any WBC examination platform. However, most conventional cell separation techniques are labor-intensive and low throughput, require large volumes of samples, need extensive cell manipulation, and have low purity. To address these challenges, we report the design an...

The up-and-coming microfluidic technology is the most promising platform for designing anti-cancer drugs and new point-of-care diagnostics. Compared to conventional drug screening methods based on Petri dishes and animal studies, drug delivery in microfluidic systems has many advantages. For instance, these platforms offer high-throughput drug scre...

Rapid isolation of white blood cells (WBCs) from whole blood is an essential part of any WBC examination platform. However, most conventional cell separation techniques are labor-intensive and low throughput, require large volumes of samples, need extensive cell manipulation, and have low purity. To address these challenges, we report the design an...

The up-and-coming microfluidic technology is the most promising platform for designing anti-cancer drugs and new point-of-care diagnostics. Compared to conventional drug screening methods based on Petri dishes and animal studies, drug delivery in microfluidic systems has many advantages. For instance, these platforms offer high throughput drug scre...

Microfluidic lab-on-chip devices are widely being developed for chemical and biological studies. One of the most commonly used types of these chips is perfusion microwells for culturing multicellular spheroids. The main challenge in such systems is the formation of substantial necrotic and quiescent zones within the cultured spheroids. Herein, we p...

Microfluidic particle focusing has been a vital prerequisite step in sample preparation for downstream particle separation, counting, detection or analysis, and has attracted broad applications in biomedical and chemical areas. Besides all the active and passive focusing methods in Newtonian fluids, particle focusing in viscoelastic fluids has been...

DNA methylation is a cell-type-specific epigenetic marker that is essential for transcriptional regulation, silencing of repetitive DNA and genomic imprinting. It is also responsible for the pathogenesis of many diseases, including cancers. Herein, we present a simple approach for quantifying global DNA methylation in ovarian cancer patient plasma...

Microfluidic lab-on-chip devices are widely being developed for chemical and biological studies. One of the most commonly used types of these chips is perfusion microwells for culturing multicellular spheroids. The main challenge in such systems is the formation of substantial necrotic and hypoxic zones within the cultured spheroids. Herein, we pro...

Wearable and implantable bioelectronics have experienced remarkable progress over the last decades. Bioelectronic devices provide seamless integration between electronics and biological tissue, offering unique functions for healthcare applications such as real-time and online monitoring and stimulation. Organic semiconductors and silicon-based flex...

Dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) is a novel source of biomarkers that can be considered as an alternative to blood sampling for disease diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, in vivo extraction and analysis of ISF are challenging. On the other hand, microneedle (MN) technology can address most of the challenges associated with dermal ISF extraction...

In article number 2005363, Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani and co‐workers comprehensively review the existing intracellular delivery technologies at the macro‐ and micro‐/nanoscale based on their impact resolution. This study gives an insight to researchers interested in intracellular delivery, ranging from biologists looking for the most appropriate cargo...

Dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) is a novel source of biomarkers that can be considered as an alternative to blood sampling for disease diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, in vivo extraction and analysis of ISF are challenging. On the other hand, microneedle (MN) technology can address most of the challenges associated with dermal ISF extraction...

Fluid shear stress, osmotic pressure gradient, and extracellular matrix stiffness are invivo, mechanical stimuli that affect cells’ interaction with drugs in biological structures. This paper introduces an integrated concentration gradient generator (CGG) capable of providing cell monolayers with these stimuli and demonstrates the procedures for de...

Intracellular delivery is considered an indispensable process for various studies, ranging from medical applications (cell-based therapy) to fundamental (genome-editing) and industrial (biomanufacture) approaches. Conventional macroscale delivery systems critically suffer from such issues as low cell viability, cytotoxicity, and inconsistent materi...

In article number 2000108, Navid Kashaninejad, Nam‐Trung Nguyen, and co‐workers overcome the bottleneck of evaporation in liquid marbles (LMs) by incorporating an agarose hydrogel inside the LMs. The findings show that LMs with hydrogel prolong the lifetime of the platform and leads to the formation of perfect multicellular spheroids.

Digital microfluidics based on liquid marble (LM) has recently emerged as a promising platform for liquid handling and cell‐based assays. However, evaporation is a critical problem in such platforms, hindering their wide‐range applications in various fields. This study aims to develop a functional sessile LM system for long‐term 3D cell culture. Pr...

Elucidating the microscale interaction between magnetism and fluid flow is of great importance for designing micro-magnetofluidic gradient generators, micromixers, and particle sorters. Co-flowing magnetic and non-magnetic fluids can lead to instability at their interface and subsequent rapid mixing. The mismatch in the magnetisation of the fluids...

Long non-coding RNA HOX transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is one of the promising biomarkers that has widely been used in determining the stages of many cancers, including ovarian cancer. In cancer diagnostics, the two key analytical challenges for detecting long non-coding RNA biomarkers are i) the low concentration levels (nM to fM ran...

Microfluidics has been demonstrating enormous potential through its role in recent advances in biological sciences. However, designing a new and customized microfluidic platform, gaining a better understanding of its function and the underlying physics still pose significant technical challenges. On the one hand, experimental approaches have been c...

Liver cancer, especially hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is an aggressive disease with an extremely high mortality rate. Unfortunately, no promising markers are currently available for the early diagnosis of this disease. Thus, a reliable biomarker reflecting the early behaviour of the tumour will be valuable for diagnosis and treatment. The Ras ho...

Microfluidic concentration gradient generators (μCGGs) are indispensable parts of many emerging lab-on-a-chip platforms for biological studies and drug delivery applications. Most of the μCGGs reported in the literature can only generate the desired concentration gradients in a micron-sized sample (e.g., cells). As such, there is an unmet need to d...

Droplet-based microfluidics offers significant advantages, such as high throughput and scalability, making platforms based on this technology ideal candidates for point-of-care (POC) testing and clinical diagnosis. However, the efficiency of co-encapsulation in droplets is suboptimal, limiting the applicability of such platforms for the biosensing...

Controlling the evaporation process of a droplet is of the utmost importance for a number of technologies. Also, along with the advances of microfabrication, micropatterned surfaces have emerged as an important technology platform to tune the wettability and other surface properties of various fundamental and applied applications. Among the geometr...

In recent years, a new group of nanomaterials named as nanozymes that exhibit enzyme-mimic catalytic activity, has emerged as a promising alternative to natural enzymes. Nanozymes can address some of the intrinsic limitations of natural enzymes such as high cost, low stability, difficulty in storage, and specific working conditions (i.e., narrow su...

This chapter discusses the integrations of the nanoparticles with microfluidic platforms for biological diagnosis. It evaluates the applications of two emerging formats of microfluidics, digital microfluidics and paper‐based microfluidics, for biological diagnosis. Microfluidics is an enabling technology that can be employed in numerous biological...

Concentration gradient generators (CGGs) help biologists to perform large scale, fast and high-throughput experiments. This paper introduces a design tool called Tree-like Concentration gradient generator Design Tool (TCDT). The performance of this tool is validated both numerically and experimentally. Three CGGs were fabricated using three differe...

No matter how sophisticated the structures are and on what length scale the pore sizes are, fluid displacement in porous media can be visualized, captured, mimicked and optimized using microfluidics. Visualizing transport processes is fundamental to our understanding of complex hydrogeological systems, petroleum production, medical science applicat...

In article number 1900425, Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani and co‐workers report the use of a newly developed 3D printing resin for rapid softlithography of microfluidic chips, reducing the total design‐to‐development time from several days to less than 5 hrs. This could open new opportunities for biologists and scientists with minimum knowledge about micr...

Fluid mechanics of flow in hydrophobic, rectangular microchannels with finite aspect ratios is of paramount importance. In such microchannels, not only the effect of the side walls should be taken into account, but also the classical assumption of no-slip boundary condition (BC) is no longer valid at the solid-liquid interface. Accordingly, slip fl...

Microfluidic cell culture platforms are ideal candidates for modeling the native tumor microenvironment because they can precisely reconstruct in vivo cellular behavior. Moreover, mathematical modeling of tumor growth can pave the way toward description and prediction of growth pattern as well as improving cancer treatment. In this study, a modifie...

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a long‐standing material of significant interest in microfluidics due to its unique features. As such, rapid prototyping of PDMS‐based microchannels is of great interest. The most prevalent and conventional method for fabrication of PDMS‐based microchips relies on softlithography, the main drawback of which is the pre...

This study presents a new form of velocity distribution in laminar liquid flow in rectangular microchannels using the eigenfunction expansion technique. Darcy friction factor and Poiseuille number are also obtained analytically. Due to the symmetry of the solutions, the effects of changing the aspect ratio from 0 to ∞ are also discussed. Using fini...

Autoantibodies produced by the patients' own immune systems in response to foreign substances are emerging as an attractive biomarker for early detection of cancer. These serum immunobiomarkers are produced in large quantities despite the presence of very less amount of the corresponding antigens, and thus presenting themselves as a novel class of...

Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. ABSTRACT: Dielectrophoresis is a robust approach for manipulating bio-particles in microfluidic devices. In recent years, many groups have developed dielectrophoresis-based microfluidic systems for separation and concentration of various types of bio-particles, where the gradient of the electric...

High-throughput, rapid and homogeneous mixing of microdroplets in a small length scale such as that in a microchannel is of great importance for lab-on-a-chip applications. Various techniques for mixing enhancement in microfluidics have been extensively reported in the literature. One of these techniques is the mixing enhancement with magnetofluidi...

Tumor metastasis is responsible for the vast majority of cancer-associated morbidities and mortalities. Recent studies have disclosed the higher metastatic potential of circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters than single CTCs. Despite long-term study on metastasis, the characterizations of its most potent cellular drivers, i.e., CTC clusters have onl...

Cryopreservation without cryoprotectant remains a significant challenge for the reestablishment of cell culture after freeze-thaw. Thus, finding an alternative and simple cryopreservation method is necessary. Liquid marble (LM) based digital microfluidics is a promising approach for cryoprotectant-free cryopreservation. However, the use of this pla...

We report a unique and robust bioreactor platform based on liquid marble (LM) with embedded hydrogel for digital microfluidics. The LM is a liquid droplet coated with hydrophobic powder. To prevent this droplet from evaporation, the LM floats on a liquid surface. Furthermore, a hydrogel loaded with growth factors and drugs is embedded in the LM. Th...

There has been increasing interest in electronic systems with integrated microfluidic active cooling modules. However, the failure of 3C-SiC/Si interface with increasing temperature has prevented the development of 3C-SiC power electronic devices. Here, we develop all integrated transparent heating, sensing and cooling systems on a single silicon c...

Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems can be regarded as suitable platforms to bridge the huge gap between animal studies and two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture to study chronic diseases such as cancer. In particular, the preclinical platforms for multicellular spheroid formation and culture can be regarded as ideal in vitro tumour m...

Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems can be regarded as suitable platforms to bridge the huge gap between animal studies and two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture to study chronic diseases such as cancer. In particular, the preclinical platforms for multicellular spheroid formation and culture can be regarded as ideal in vitro tumor mo...

Thin, porous membranes are important components in a microfluidic device, serving as separators, filters, and scaffolds for cell culture. However, the fabrication and the integration of these membranes possess many challenges, which restrict their widespread applications. This paper reports a facile technique to fabricate robust membrane-embedded m...