Dr. Pouyan Boukany

Dr. Boukany’s research at TU Delft is focused on fundamental and applied topics at the interface of microfluidics, soft matter, and biology, with a major emphasis on controlling and understanding the dynamics and transport of biological systems at micro/nanoscale. A central theme is the use of biophysical tools to control and investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of DNA and cytoskeletal elements, tumor microenvironment and cell membranes for biomedical applications, from physical gene delivery to cancer cell migration, with a special focus on using cutting-edge microfluidics for cell manipulation and biological characterization. We will employ both experimental and theoretical approaches to understand fundamental issues in a wide variety of applications ranging from bio-microfluidics, (bio)polymer physics, tumor-microenvironment, molecular rheology to cancer treatment.

Academic background

Dr. Boukany is an Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department of the TU Delft, where he heads an independent group called “living soft matter group”. In the past years, Dr. Boukany has been internationally recognized by his unique multidisciplinary approach to biomedical problem in the area of biomicrofluidcs, cell isolation and manipulation on a chip. He completed his master degree at Isfahan University of Technology and his Ph.D. in Polymer Science from the University of Akron (Ohio, USA). His doctoral work explored nonlinear flow response of entangled DNA solutions. He joined as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices at the Ohio State University (USA) in 2009. In December 2011, he established his research group in the Chemical Engineering Department. Dr. Boukany has been recognized by several prestigious fellowships and personal grants, including a Marie Curie fellowship (2012), an ERC Starting Grant (2013), a van Gogh grant (2014), and an ERC Consolidator Grant (2018) to start and consolidate his research group in Europe.