Microfluidic careers

Jesús Domínguez & soil microorganisms | My Microfluidics Career

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My microfluidics career – Soil microorganisms

What can you achieve with microfluidics? What are the practical applications of microfluidics to a field of research, and how could microfluidics help your research career?

We asked our own Elveflow research teams for you. Our Microfluidics Careers pages give you a no frills, realistic idea of the wide variety of projects that can benefit from microfluidics.

Jesús Manuel Antúnez Domínguez is working on the Active Matter project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 812780.

What is the most interesting thing about your project?

My project is part of the ActiveMatter ITN, where my PhD thesis deals with the development of a microfluidic platform for the study of unculturable soil microorganisms. In my project, I try to implement the complex conditions of the soil, including physical heterogeneity, chemical gradients and community interactions; in a microfluidic chip to be able to culture a wider range of soil-dwelling species of fungi and bacteria. Ultimately, this new tool would help to boost the current research on soil microorganisms and its promising applications. More information can be found in my project description and in my review on soil-on-chip systems.

What I consider the most interesting thing about my project is the multidisciplinarity. There are so many parts involved that need to fit together in the project, and none of them can be neglected. Even if microfluidics play the main role; dynamics, biology, chemistry and environmental sciences are intrinsically linked to the topic of the project. Sometimes that can make you feel like a fish out of water, but at the same time, it is an opportunity to learn about new fields and most importantly, a challenge to take on!

How did you transition from your previous research field to microfluidics?

I would say the transition was quite fluid, as my background involves physics and materials engineering. By the end of my studies I was already interested in physical chemistry, and therefore, I did my thesis about the synthesis of emulsions with droplets in the micrometer shape. Afterwards, this interest was further expanded in the study of nano colloids and nanotechnology. That is why I think microfluidics were a natural step in my career that actually integrates and benefits from all my previous experience.

“Microfluidics were a natural step in my career.”

On this project, what are you doing that would be impossible without microfluidics?

The control you can achieve over a sample or culture thanks to microfluidics is a really powerful tool, allowing you to finely adjust any condition that might be needed. Specifically for the case of complex systems like soil and soil microorganisms, this comes in handy to replicate heterogeneous and changing parameters. On top of that, microfluidic devices can be studied directly and are adapted to imaging and analysis processes without altering the experimental setup.

“Soil microorganisms are highly unknown even to this day .”

How does this project push back the current state of the art?

Soil microorganisms are highly unknown even to this day due to the lack of a proper platform that allows to culture and study them. As conventional cultures only support a few species of soil bacteria and fungi from which interesting applications have been found (bioremediation, enhanced crops, new antibiotics development…), there is a lot of potential hidden in the currently unculturable species. Consequently, this project pushes the state of art in two different directions, first of all, the development of devices that mimic highly complex and dynamic environments such as soil, and next, to give a lift for future specific microbiology research.

Curious about the Active Matter project and Jesús’ work? He went into its details in his webinar on soil-on-chip microfluidics.