Research Experiences

Research Associate and Post-doctoral Fellow

• Stanford Genome Technology Center and Department of General Surgery(Sept 2007– Present)
  • Electrical detection of HPV viruses and pregnancy protein biomarker with bioactivated nanopores in clinical samples
  • Purification and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples of breast cancer patients
  • Developing nanopore charge sensors in collaboration with Bosch-RTC for PCR-free targeted DNA detection

Research Assistant

• Stanford Genome Technology Center and Electrical Engineering (Dec 2002 – Sept 2007)
  • Experimental
    • Fabrication of a customized synthetic nanopore device for single molecule analysis
    • Electrical detection of single antibody-antigen interaction with bioactivated nanopores
    • Electrical quantification of target proteins with array of nanopores bioactivated with antibodies
    • Electrical detection of target nucleic-acid biomarkers using nanopores bioactivated with DNA probes
  • Modeling
    • Prediction of protein orientation upon immobilization on biological and non-biological surfaces
    • Electrical impedance modeling of the bioactivated electrodes for integrated sensory systems
    • Electrical modeling of the bioactivated nanopore devices

Collaborator

• Prof. Jeffrey, General Surgery Department, Stanford University (Dec 2005 – Present)
  • Technology development for circulating tumor cell (CTC) separation from blood
• Prof. Howe, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University (June 2007 – Present)
  • Integrated nanopore charge sensors for PCR-free DNA detection
• Prof. Dutton, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University (Dec 2005 – Present)
  • Predictive electrical modeling of protein orientation upon immobilization on surfaces, electrical properties of bioactivated surfaces and nanopores
• Prof. Santiago, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University (Aug 2006 – Present)
  • Real-time control of the zeta potential of the synthetic nanopore devices

Mentorship Experiences

• Stanford Genome Technology Center
  • Leader and supervisor of the technology section of Stanford Genome Technology Center (consisting of 15 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows) for NIH grant renewal (Jan 2008 – Present)
  • Supervisor of biomedical engineer working on HCG detection and quantification with array of bioactivated nanopores (July 2006 – present)
  • Supervisor of an undergraduate student working on DNA Methylation detection with biological nanopores (May 2006 - Sept 2006)
  • Supervisor of an M.Sc. student working on electrical modeling of the protein immobilization (Jan 2005 - June 2005)

Teaching Experience

• Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
  • Fluid Flow in Micro Devices (2007)
• Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology
  • Communication Systems (2000)
  • Probability and Statistics (2000)

Industrial Experiences

• Sonitus Medical Inc., Menlo Park, CA (Oct 2006 – Nov 2007)
  • Consultant: Designing integrated bone conduction hearing aid devices
• National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale, CA (June 2003 - Dec 2003)
  • Summer intern and Circuit Design Contractor: Designed and tested the LNA block for UWB systems.
• Snowbush Inc., Toronto, Canada (Sep 2002 - Nov 2002)
  • Circuit Design Engineer: Worked as physical and circuit design engineer for a power-line data communication chip.
• TDK Semiconductor Corp., Mountain View, CA (June 2002 - Sep 2002)
  • Summer Intern: Designed the receiver equalizer for 10Gbps serial link applications.
• IDS Corp., Tehran, Iran (July 97 - Dec 97)
  • Hardware Engineer: Worked with some test boards for industrial applications