News & Events

Gretchen presented her latest uFFE work at the 3M Poster Session on campus last week! The University, in partnership with 3M, hosts this annual event as an  opportunity for grad students and post-docs to share their research with industry-minded executives, scientists, and engineers from 3M.

Gretchen traveled to San Diego last week to present her research at the 75th Annual Pittcon Conference, where she gave an oral presentation on her research progress, “An Online Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Platform for Continuous Monitoring of Peptide Messengers.” It was a great week hearing from other analytical chemists and exploring San Diego with some Bühlmann & Stein group members!

The Bowser group is happy to welcome our new first year graduate students, Sandra, Jaya, and Jordan to the group! They'll be working on micro free flow electrophoresis and droplet microfluidics projects, and we're so excited to have them!

The Bowser group was named one of the chemistry department Fall 2023 safest labs, and the top scoring group in our hazard category!

Congratulations to Cecilia on the publication of her paper “Assessing Surface Adsorption in Cyclic Olefin Copolymer Microfluidic Devices Using Two-Dimensional Nano Liquid Chromatography-Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Separations” in Analytical Chemistry this week! Check out the full paper here!

Congratulations to our latest Bowser lab graduate, Dr. Cecilia Douma! Cecilia successfully defended her thesis entitled, Microfluidic assays for assessing oligonucleotide catalyst abundance and monitoring biomolecule concentration in real time.

Cecilia gave an excellent defense presentation wrapping up her five years in the Bowser group, and will be very missed as she starts her new job at Bio-Techne!

Congratulations to Matt on the publication of his paper titled “Fabrication of µFFE Devices in COC via Hot Embossing with a 3D-Printed Master Mold” into Micromachines as part of the special issue: Advancements in Design and Fabrication of Miniature Devices. Check out the full paper here!

Cecilia traveled to Florida this week to present her research at the 39th International Symposium on Microscale Separations and Bioanalysis (MSB), where she was one of four graduate students selected to receive the Award for Excellence in Oral Presentation for her presentation, “Surface adsorption and micro free-flow electrophoresis affinity assay development in cyclic olefin copolymer devices.” Congratulations, Cecilia!

Congratulations to our newest graduate, Dr. Matt LeMon! Matt successfully defended his thesis entitled, Enhancing Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis: Detection, Application, and Fabrication!

Matt gave a great presentation, sharing his research on all things micro free flow! We'll all miss having you in the Bowser Group, Matt!

Cecilia presented her talk, “Development of a micro free flow electrophoresis assay for the continuous quantification of tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα)” as a part of the the third annual Jeannette Brown Lectureship, co-sponsored by Merck & Co., Inc. 

Learn more about the 2023 Jeannette Brown Lectureship here: https://cse.umn.edu/chem/events/2023-jeannette-brown-lectureship

Cecilia and Gretchen both presented oral presentations and posters at Pittcon 2023 in Philadelphia, sharing their research progress on µFFE surface chemistry and affinity assays! It was a great week of presentations, posters, and exploring Philadelphia!

Congratulations to Dr. Nic Brinza for successfully defending his thesis entitled, Beyond the cycle: investigating the sequencing, binding affinity, and utility of aptamers selected with CE-SELEX!

Nic gave a great presentation concluding his time in the Bowser Group, sharing his research on CE-SELEX, binding assay optimization, cell internalization, and DNA sequencing data analysis. We'll miss having you in lab, Nic!

Our fall group meetings will be every other Friday at 1pm in NHH 6-250! (Sept. 30, Oct. 14, Oct. 28, Nov. 11) Feel free to stop by for some snacks and listen in if you’re interested in learning more about the group!

The Bowser group was recently awarded a $1.25 million NIH grant: Online Affinity Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Assays for Continuous Monitoring of Biochemical Messengers!

Funding Agency:  National Institutes of Health (NIGMS)

Amount:  $1.25 million

Our goal is to develop an online, flow-through, affinity assay that can continuously monitor the efflux of biochemical messengers from dynamically changing biological systems in real time.  Microfluidic integration of a perfusion chamber, online mixing of affinity reagents and continuous micro free flow electrophoresis (µFFE) separations will directly address limitations that have prevented the development of time responsive affinity-based assays to date.  Continuous affinity µFFE assays will enable researchers to study how biochemical messenger systems (i.e. neurotransmission, energy regulation and immune response) change over time or respond to external stimuli.

Gretchen was selected as one of eight winners of the Paul and Gerda Gassman Award at the 21st annual 3rd-year Graduate Student Research Symposium for her talk "An Online Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Platform for Continuous Monitoring of Neuropeptide Y."  She was awarded a $1000 travel grant, and follows Bowser group member Cecilia, last year's winner! 

Welcome to our new lab website! Check out our research page, group member profiles, photos, and more!

The Bowser Lab was recognized as the "Safest Lab" in the Chemistry Department after the Fall 2021 JST Walkthroughs!