Jungkyu Kim
Co-Investigator
Jungkyo Kim is an assistant professor at the University of Utah in the department of mechanical engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Utah in 2005. His research interests include high-throughput gene/protein analysis, biosensor and bioelectronics, programmable microfluidic platforms, point-of-care diagnostics, cell and tissue engineering and biomechanics.
zachary estlack
Zachary Estlack is a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, working as a graduate researcher at the Biomedical Micro/Nano Systems Lab in Salt Lake City.
Zachary earned his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University in 2015. He proceeded to complete his Master’s in 2019, with his thesis focusing on building a microfluidic model of the human corneal epithelium for estimating drug permeation. His current work concentrates on integrated programmable microfluidic platforms for use in extra-terrestrial biomolecule detection.
Since 2017, Zachary has published numerous papers on biomedical systems, including a microfluidic cardiac flow profile generator to examine shear stress on valvular endothelial cells, and an integrated flexible capacitance sensor for monitoring microvalve actuation. His latest research involves microvalve array fabrication using selective PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) bonding through Perfluorooctyl-trichlorosilane passivation for long-term space exploration. He has also attended various academic conferences to present scientific findings in bioengineering, biomedical, and astrobiology, most recently to present latest progress on the integrated, programmable microfluidic automation platform.
His current work at Dr. Kim’s research lab focuses on the development of novel fabrication methods and theory of operations for complex microfluidic devices with extensive experience in the design and implementation of programmable microfluidic platforms and organ chips.