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Thursday, June 8, 2023

Recognizing Excellence in Professional Engineering: Dr. Carolyn Ren Honoured by Canadian Academy of Engineering

Dr. Carolyn Ren is a mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor and a Canada Research Chair in Microfluidic Technology. As director of Waterloo’s Microfluidics Laboratory, she is recognized as one of Canada’s top microfluidics researchers, with her work having a broad and profound impact on the global biomedical, pharmaceutical and environmental sectors.

Ren is a Member of the Royal Society of Canada College (2018), a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (2012) and was recently named one of WXN Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women (2021).

She was recognized as one of 20 leading innovators in Women of Innovation: The Impact of Leading Engineers in Canada. Ren is also an entrepreneur; her microfluidic innovations have spurred the launch of four start-up companies with her students (Advanced Electrophoresis Solutions, Alphaxon, QuantWave Technologies, and Air Mircrofluidics Systems.

Monday, May 9, 2022

Carolyn Ren's Microfluidics Lab helps build Robotic Sleeve for Lymphedema Treatment

Novel Microfluidics-Enabled Soft Robotic Sleeve Enables Lymphedema Treatment.

Breast cancer survivors commonly suffer from lymphedema due to a high risk of lymph node damage or removal during surgical procedures.

In order to overcome these issues, a soft robotic sleeve was created by a team consisting of the investigators from the University of Waterloo’s Microfluidics Laboratory, DIESEL Biomechanics Laboratory, Breast Rehab, and Myant, Inc.

The prototype is more portable and cheaper than traditional devices - with a  weight that is less than an iPhone 13, it could run on a 3.7-volt lithium-ion battery.

“My definition of wearable is you can wear it and do whatever you want, and not be plugged into a wall. Bringing in the microfluidics field, we wanted to make the system battery-powered but without compromising the performance" Carolyn Ren, Study Author, University of Waterloo.  Read more about the lymphedema sleeve here.