New technologies measure epigenetic marks on histones and DNA at nearly single-cell resolution in the brain. However, these tools can be expensive for labs to use, especially when studying diseases across large groups of patients and controls. To address this, Lu’s team came up with an alternative approach to scan spatial patterns of epigenetic marks in the brain by dissecting thin slices and running lower-cost bulk epigenomic methods. In doing so, they avoid reading millions of cellular instruction manuals cover to cover and instead read a single summary of all the manuals on a shelf. They published their work in Cell Reports Methods and dubbed the approach epigenomic tomography, inspired by a previously published method called RNA tomography that itself references the family of methods to image large objects by iterating over slices.

An estimated one in six people suffer from a brain disorder worldwide, according to the American Brain Foundation. Current research has provided some insight into cell-communication inside the brain, but there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding how this crucial organ functions. What if there was a comprehensive map that took into consideration not just the biology of the brain, but the specific location where the biology occurs? Researchers in the College of Engineering have developed a powerful, cost-effective method to do just that.

A five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse will fund the Virginia Tech Department of Chemical Engineering’s pioneering research to understand how adolescent exposure may contribute to opioid addiction. Examples of adolescent exposure include youth taking prescribed opioid medication for pain relief following a sports injury or experiencing neglect in instances of parental opioid addiction. Chang Lu, the Fred W. Bull Professor of Chemical Engineering and graduate chair, will serve as the contact principal investigator of the initiative, leading a team in the research.

Therapeutic proteins are protein-based drug candidates bioengineered in the lab for pharmaceutical and clinical applications. Based on their pharmacokinetics, the candidates can be divided into groups that (1) replace a defective or abnormal protein, (2) augment an existing path in vivo, (3) provide a new function or activity in vivo, (4) interfere with activities of a molecule or organism and (5) deliver encapsulated proteins or compounds including, cytotoxic drugs, radionuclide or effector proteins. In a recent study published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering, Travis W. Murphy and co-workers at the Departments of Chemical and Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech developed a cost-effective, point-of-care synthetic and purification platform for protein engineering.

Danfeng "Daphne" Yao, a computer science professor at Virginia Tech, wants to improve the prediction accuracy of machine-learning models in medical applications. Her research findings were recently published in Communications Medicine, a selective open-access journal from Nature Portfolio. “Inaccurate prediction may produce life-threatening consequences,” said Yao, who is both the Elizabeth and James E. Turner Jr. '56 Faculty and CACI Faculty fellow in the College of Engineering.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the putative therapeutic benefits of psychedelics for mental-health disorders is their longevity, because effects can persist for months after a single dose. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech and elsewhere have now identified some of the cellular and molecular changes in the brain that might contribute to these long-term outcomes.

Banned in the 1960s after recreational popularity, psychedelics have had a resurgence of discussion in recent years as regulators allow researchers to study the effects. Psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, mescaline and LSD, among others, demonstrate potential for combatting the symptoms of mental illnesses, including addiction, anxiety, depression and PTSD. A collaborative study between teams led by Chang Lu at Virginia Tech (VA, USA) and Javier González-Maeso at Virginia Commonwealth University (VA, USA), researchers observed the epigenomic effects of psychedelics. In mice, a single dose of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI), an LSD analogue, demonstrated long-lasting results. Other research, primarily on psilocybin – the active ingredient in 200 species of mushrooms – has also indicated signs of their capability to alleviate anxiety and depression.

April 3rd, 2020 Chang Lu, the Fred W. Bull Professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Chemical Engineering within the College of Engineering, has been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows.

July 11, 2018 Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) have recently discovered significant epigenetic differences when comparing cells in the cerebellum and the prefrontal cortex of the mouse brain.

April 19, 2018 Researchers from Virginia Tech have devised a low-input, high-throughput method for ChIP-seq that makes use of microfluidic technology in order to enable epigenomic profiling of clinical samples, where material is limited.

Oct, 2015 Here we highlight a flurry of recent activity to identify the mRNA profiles from thousands of single-cells as well as chromatin accessibility and histone marks on single to few hundreds of cells. Microfluidics and microfabrication have played a central role in the range of new techniques, and will likely continue to impact their further development towards routine single-cell epigenetic analysis.

September 11, 2015 Researchers from the laboratories of Chang Lu and Kai Tan have come up with a “little” change to the ChIP process. Their new methodology, micro­fluidic oscillatory washing–based ChIP sequencing (MOWChIP-seq), generates reproducible results with as few as 100 cells and could represent a huge “little” step forward for the field.

July 28, 2015 The epigenome’s many obfuscations may soon “come out with the wash,” thanks to a microfluidics-based technique that can improve the collection of high-quality ChIP-enriched DNA. The new technique, which is called microfluidic oscillatory washing–based chromatin immunoprecipitation (MOWChIP-seq), is so good at removing nonspecifically binding chromatin that it allows analysis of epigenomic modifications with as few as 100 cells.

July 28, 2015 In a study published in Nature Methods, Zhenning Cao and colleagues showed how research done by Chang Lu, also one of the authors of the study, has resulted in the development of tools that can analyze living cell samples effectively. Specifically, Lu was able to produce in his lab small microfluidic devices fitted with micrometer features that can examine cell events at the molecular level.

September 01, 2011 Transfection technology for inserting nucleic acids into cells is getting a boost from novel electroporation techniques, new reagents, and easier-to-use transfection platforms. One leading-edge example is work being done by Virginia Tech associate professor Chang Lu, Ph.D. Dr. Lu's approach eliminates the need for expensive pulse generators, achieves uniform poration over the entire cell surface, and reduces toxicity. The result is reduced cost, higher transfection rates, and improved cell viability.

Researchers at Virginia Tech are developing gene delivery methods to combat diseases.

Chemical engineers at Virginia Tech have developed an enhanced method to deliver DNA payloads into cells - a technique they eventually hope to apply to genetically modify cells for cancer immunotherapy, stem cell therapy, and tissue regeneration.

A Purdue research team has developed a process to determine the severity of cancers nearly 300 times faster than methods used today

September 18, 2008 How fat cells become after being exposed to a specialized electrical field is helping researchers determine whether cells are normal, cancerous or a stage of cancer already invading other parts of the body.

Researchers at Purdue University recently simplified single-cell electroporation to a single-channel microfluidic chip.