Date of Award
5-12-2025
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Microbes carry out a wide range of functions essential to environmental systems, industrial processes, and biomedical applications. However, many microbial behaviors are governed by physical and chemical cues that are difficult to control or isolate in conventional laboratory systems. Processes such as extracellular electron uptake and secondary metabolite production remain incompletely understood due to the limitations of current experimental tools. This dissertation presents the development of multiplexed, miniaturized platforms designed to enable high-resolution, parallel investigation of microbial activity across a range of growth environments. The first is a scalable microfluidic bioelectrochemical cell platform that supports multiplexed electrochemical and optical measurements to study extracellular electron uptake in bacteria. The second is a modular microfluidic cassette system developed to investigate Streptomyces bacteria growth and secondary metabolism at the solid–liquid interface.
Language
English (en)