The SUTAB project implemented by Sabancı University faculty members led to the design of a device that uses micro cavitation technology, or the erosive power of bubbles obtained by cavitation, to eliminate kidney stones, prostrate growth, cancer and tumors without harming the patient. The SUTAB team used the erosive power of water micro-bubbles obtained by the cavitation method to design a medical device that eliminates kidney stones, prostrate growth, cancer and tumors.

SUTAB will be the first device of its kind to be manufactured in Turkey. SUTAB will provide an affordable and completely harmless method of cancer treatment. The medical use of hydrodynamic cavitation, the principle behind SUTAB, is patented to Sabancı University scientists, which gives the device competitive edge worldwide. With the integration of SUTAB to an endoscopic probe, Turkey will have its first multifunction cancer treatment device developed with native patented technologies.

A passive, continuous and size-dependent focusing technique enabled by “inertial microfluidics”, which takes the advantage of hydrodynamic forces, is implemented to sort microparticles and cells. The objective is to analyze the decoupling effects of inertial forces and dean drag forces on microparticles and cells of different sizes in curvilinear microchannels. This fundamental approach gives insight into underlying physics as well as offering continuous, high throughput, label-free and parallelizable size based particle separation. Our design allows occupying the same footprint as straight channels, which makes parallelization possible with sufficiently parallel optical detection integration as well as achieving high efficiency similar to conventional spiral channels. This feature is also useful for ultra-high throughput applications such as flow cytometers with the advantages of reduced cost and size. Particle/cell lateral and vertical migrations and equilibrium positions of these particles are being investigated in detail, which may lead to design novel microfluidic devices for rapid detection and diagnosis of Circulating Tumor Cells with reduced cost.

Several physical methods have been developed to introduce nucleic acid expression vectors into mammalian cells. Magnetic transfection (magnetofection) is one such transfection methods, and it involves binding of nucleic acids such as DNA, RNA or siRNA to magnetic nanoparticles followed by subsequent exposure to external magnetic fields. However, the challenge between high efficiency of nucleic acid uptake by cells and toxicity was not totally resolved. Delivery of nucleic acids and their transport to the target cells require carefully designed and controlled systems. In this study, we introduced a novel magnetic system design providing varying magnet turn speeds and magnetic field directions. Application of external magnetic field increased intracellular uptake of nanoparticles in all the tested cell types. We introduce our novel magnetism-based method as a promising tool for enhanced nucleic acid delivery into mammalian cells.