An SFU Biomedical Engineering student successfully authored and presented a paper at the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society annual meeting in Vancouver in June. And she had only just completed first year.

When Connie Drewbrook graduated from New Westminster secondary, she moved to Calgary to join the Alberta Ballet. She toured China with the ballet and performed on stages in Canada and United States. But after 18 months Drewbrook decided ballet was not for her. Instead, she enrolled at SFU to major in chemistry. Again, during second year, Drewbrook changed her mind and switched to Biomedical Engineering where she was promptly immersed in ENSC 100, "Engineering, Technology & Society". The course is meant to challenge the design talents of incoming students by having them collaborate to create something that's new, that's useful, and that actually works. It's much more difficult than it sounds. Drewbrook's team decided to fabricate electronic insole heaters. Under the guidance of teaching assistant Ajit Khosla, Drewbrook soon found herself cooking up chemicals such as nanoscale tungsten and silicone polymer to make thin rubbery films that ironically could fit her old ballet shoes. 

Her team was successful. Their insole heaters worked and everyone passed the course.

But Drewbrook was just getting started. Those heaters were powerful enough to boil water and she wanted to see what else she could make. Khosla asked his PhD thesis supervisor Bonnie Gray if Drewbrook might continue to work in their lab. Dr. Gray approved immediately, so Khosla suggested Drewbrook begin characterizing the new material's coefficient of resistivity, which was necessary for further research. Working without pay and whenever she found the time, Drewbrook did it all on her own. Khosla and Gray only gave her testing equipment, lab space, and advice on where to look for information.

"It's extremely important to train undergrads like this," says Khosla, "because the kind of skills she has now, by the time she hits fourth year she'll be way ahead of anybody and will be able to get into any grad school. Many undergrads never have this experience and it's a setback. It was with me." Now when he meets willing undergrads Khosla encourages them to go as far as they can with their research. Khosla expects to complete his PhD later this year.

Gray says, "I already had another graduate student, Ang Li, working on microfluidic valves so I suggested Li and Drewbrook work together to make heat-actuated microscopic valves." Li was investigating hydrogels, substances that solidify quickly depending on temperature, making them ideal for opening and closing tiny channels in lab-on-a-chip projects. These pocket-sized "labs" are now used to rapidly identify DNA from a drop of blood, or to detect specific cancers and bacteria. Tiny valves are needed to switch minuscule amounts of liquid from one part of the chip to another. The new nanotungsten heaters might serve as valve actuators.

Drewbrook enjoyed the work so much she came in on weekends, ultimately becoming first author of a paper (with co-authors Khosla, Gray and Li) titled "Fabrication and testing of tungsten nanoparticle doped polymer microheaters for lab on a chip applications".

What's more, a second paper from Bonnie Gray's group presented at the same conference, with second author Samantha Grist, also an undergraduate student, won a $1000 prize for best paper.

Though Drewbrook was never paid, she does have a part-time job with SFU chemist Danny Leznoff where she is characterizing an ammonia sensor he designed. She says, "I've talked to Bonnie, so I may continue working on one of her lab-on-a-chip projects through a co-op appointment."

Bonnie Gray says, "I've always encouraged my undergrad research students to be active in the paper-writing/presenting process, and these young women make great role models for incoming female students."

For her part, Drewbrook has not quite put away her dancing shoes. She teaches ballet part-time in Richmond, but she's found her métier in biomedical engineering. "I love the hands-on aspect, the way you can make something right away," she says. One can only imagine what fantastic inventions a ballet dancing biomedical engineer may someday contribute to Canadian culture and society. For more information visit the SFU Microinstrumentation Lab.