Making healthcare more affordable, effective and personal is one of the great challenges of our time. In the Living Matter Lab, we pioneer new technologies that empower individuals by making information about their own biology and biome more accessible. In particular, we are exploring the development of compact and highly configurable digital microfluidic biochips that have the potential to move a variety of complex diagnostics out of the lab and into the home.
Successful development of this technology depends on the contributions of many disciplines: computer science, nanotechnology, biology and microbiology, genetics, social science, art and more. Taking an open source and collaborative approach, we are building a broad and diverse community that can contribute to the success of this nascent medical technology by sharing ideas or submitting experiments to be run in the lab. This approach to healthcare innovation is a major shift away from current norms, so as we plumb the potential of this new approach to microfluidics, we are also exploring more inclusive and democratic models for healthcare innovation.
Working at the intersection of technology and art, we are passionate about interfacing with living matter, specifically with the micro-organism part of our being and our environment. Research in our lab is a continuous play with biology, engineering and art to explore the lost connection of the humankind with all other kinds.
At a technical level, our research focuses around digital microfluidic biochips, devices that enable direct interaction of humans with their microbiome for diagnosis and treatment purposes. As an artistic investigation, we are looking into experiencing the micro-world in unique ways, e.g., microbiomes as a source for sustainability, bioluminescence as a guidance for escaping darkness, etc.
Projects
Lab Director
Associated Researchers
Alumni
Publications
Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Mirela Alistar, Laura Devendorf, and Michael L. Rivera. 2024. Desktop Biofibers Spinning: An Open-Source Machine for Exploring Biobased Fibers and Their Application Towards Sustainable Smart Textile Design. In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), (Honolulu, HI, May 11–16, 2024).
Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Lily M Gabriel, Mikhaila Friske, Shanel Wu, Sasha De Koninck, Laura Devendorf, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "Designing Dissolving Wearables". In: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2023 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing & the 2023 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computing (UbiComp/ISWC '23 Adjunct). (October 08, 2023).
Dreycey Albin, Lukas Buecherl, Eitan Kochavi, Elise Niehaus, Sasha Novack, Shenali Uragoda, Chris J. Myers, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "PhageBox: An Open Source Digital Microfluidic Extension with Applications for Phage Discovery". In: IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. (July 14, 2023).
Fiona Bell, Michelle Ramsahoye, Joshua Coffie, Julia Tung, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. “µMe: Exploring the Human Microbiome as an Intimate Material for Living Interfaces”. In: Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’23), (Pittsburgh, PA, July 10–14, 2023).
Netta Ofer and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "Felt Experiences with Kombucha Scoby: Exploring First-person Perspectives with Living Matter". In: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Hamburg, Germany, April 23-28, 2023).
Fiona Bell, Derrek Chow, Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Laura Devendorf, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "Designing Interactions with Kombucha SCOBY". In: Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '23) (Warsaw, Poland, February 26 - March 1, 2023). [Best Pictorial Award]
Fiona Bell, Derrek Chow, Hyelin Choi, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "SCOBY Breastplate: Slowly Growing a Microbial Interface". In: Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '23) (Warsaw, Poland, February 26 - March 1, 2023).
Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Netta Ofer, Shanel Wu, Mary Etta West, Mirela Alistar and Laura Devendorf. 2022. Exploring Biofoam as a Material for Tangible Interaction. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22), Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1525-1529. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533494 (June 13-17, 2022—Virtual Event, Australia).
Fiona Bell, Netta Ofer, Hyelin Choi, Ella McQuaid, Ethan Frier, and Mirela Alistar. 2022. Biomaterial Playground: Engaging with Bio-based Materiality. In Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519875 (New Orleans, LA—April 29-May 5, 2022).
Fiona Bell, Netta Ofer, and Mirela Alistar. 2022. ReClaym our Compost: Biodegradable Clay for Intimate Making. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517711 (New Orleans, LA, USA—April 29-May 5, 2022). [Best Paper Honorable Mention Award]
Fiona Bell, Ella McQuaid, and Mirela Alistar. 2022. Alganyl: Cooking Sustainable Clothing. Diseña 20: Design and Somatic Sensibilities. Article 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.20.Article.4
Fiona Bell, Latifa Al-Naimi, Ella McQuaid, and Mirela Alistar. 2022. Designing with Alganyl. In Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 2, 1-14. DOI: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3490149.3501308 (Daejeon, Republic of Korea (virtual) Feb. 13-16, 2022).
Fiona Bell and Mirela Alistar. 2022. Designing with Alganyl: A Hands-on Exploration of Biodegradable Plastics. In Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 56, 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3490149.3503669 (Daejeon, Republic of Korea (virtual)–Feb. 13-16, 2022).
Netta Ofer, Fiona Bell and Mirela Alistar. 2021. Designing Direct Interactions with Bioluminescent Algae. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021 (DIS ’21), June 28-July 2, 2021, Virtual Event, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 23 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462090
Fiona Bell, Alice Hong, Andreea Danielescu, Aditi Maheshwari, Ben Greenspan, Hiroshi Ishii, Laura Devendorf, and Mirela Alistar. 2021. Self-deStaining Textiles: Designing Interactive Systems with Fabric, Stains and Light. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–12. (Yokohama, Japan (virtual)–May 8-13, 2021). pdf.
Fiona Bell and Mirela Alistar. 2021. Alganyl. Patent No. US 63/184,992, Filed April 26th, 2021.
Fiona Bell. 2021. The Undyeing Swatch. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 86, 1–3. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3430524.3444704 (Salzburg, Austria (virtual) Feb. 14-19, 2021).
Mirela Alistar and Margherita Pevere. 2020. Semina Aeternitatis: Using Bacteria for Tangible Interaction with Data. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–13. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3381817 (Honolulu, Hawaii (virtual)–April 25-30, 2020).
Timothy Merritt, Foad Hamidi, Mirela Alistar & Marta DeMenezes (2020) Living media interfaces: a multi-perspective analysis of biological materials for interaction, Digital Creativity, 31:1, 1-21, DOI: 10.1080/14626268.2019.1707231.
Mirela Alistar. Mobile Microfluidics. Bioengineering Journal. DOI: [10.3390/bioengineering6010005]
