Dr Jia Yanwei, an assistant professor from the State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed Signal VLSI (AMSV), University of Macau (UM), recently received an Innovation Award at the Ninth International Multidisciplinary Conference on Optofluidics (IMCO) for her study titled ‘Digital Microfluidics for Disease Diagnostics’. A PhD student from Dr Jia’s research group, namely Shen Ren, received the Best Poster Award at the same conference for his paper titled ‘Hairpin-structured PCR Enhancer for Digital Microfluidic Systems’. The awards are testament to their contributions in applying digital microfluidics in biomedical sciences.

IMCO aims to promote scientific exchange and foster closer links among leading international optics and micro/nanofluidics researchers. Every year, IMCO honours individuals with outstanding achievements in optics, photonics, microfluidics, biomedical science, and other related areas. Two out of the 11 nominees received the Innovation Award and only one out of the 100 posters received the Best Poster Award. The awards were jointly presented by the IMCO, Nature Communications, and IOO Foundation. Dr Jia’s work has had a great scientific impact and profound practical implications in related fields.  

This year’s conference focused on fundamental research studies and their applications in chemistry, physics, biology, materials, and medicine. Participants discussed a wide range of topics related to optofluidics, including micro/nanofluidics, optical devices and systems, plasmonics and metamaterial, biochemical sensors, imaging and display, fabrication and integration, as well as energy and environment.