The Enablers of Discovery

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If not for Yuhwa Lo, traffic lights and automobile rear lights would not have transitioned from incandescents to LEDs until a decade later, NASA’s deep space communication efforts might take a different tack, Illumina’s gene-sequencing technology might not have gotten off the ground and flow cytometers and cell sorters, the workhorse for the biotechnology industry, wouldn’t have made it out onto lab benches. 

As the Distinguished William S. C. Chang Endowed Chair in the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the director of the Qualcomm Institute Nano3 nanofabrication cleanroom facility and the director of San Diego Nanotechnology Infrastructure (SDNI), Lo wears many hats. 

Coupled with his more than 30 year career, more than 500 published articles and 55 awarded patents (most of which have been commercialized), he’s a widely sought-after expert in the electrical engineering and nanotechnology communities. 

“I spend more time on other people’s research than on my own — and I spend a lot of time on my own research,” Lo explained, adding that he enjoys learning about other researchers’ work to satisfy his curiosity and ponder how their findings might impact his own. “I’m interested in commercialization and bringing technology out of academia and onto the market to help integrate science with industry and the local community.” 

His career started in semiconductor materials and photonic devices; with Raj Bhat, Lo co-invented direct wafer fusion in 1989, the process that spurred industry adoption of LEDs. This work is seen as the first on heterogeneous integration, which is now widely used. Within about five years, Lo said, red and yellow traffic lights and automotive rear lights around the world changed from using incandescent bulbs to LEDs, a transition that improved energy efficiency and reliability. 

A creative mind and analytical eye

Lo approaches everything he does with a creative, inquisitive mindset and a scientific thought process — that’s part of what’s made his academic and professional career so noteworthy. 

It’s also what makes him a great cook. 

Lo explained that although he doesn’t follow recipes, he uses his scientific knowledge to understand the philosophy behind the dish and create a delicious meal. 

“I use two key principles to control the cooking process: optimize the temperature gradient and optimize the water gradient of the ingredients,” he said. “Even though the spices and flavors may vary from dish to dish, if you control the water and temperature gradients of the food properly, you’re going to have a good result!” 

And, compared to research or business ideas that can take years and sizable amounts of money to test, cooking has much lower stakes. 

“The cost of failure is minimal, and people can be really happy with the result,” Lo said. “I like to create things using my creativity and imagination however I can. Cooking, science and engineering all offer plenty of opportunities for this type of mental exercise.”

Transformative technologies

Regardless of what kind of problem Lo faces — whether preparing a banquet or developing photodetectors capable of processing a single photon for NASA — he starts with one basic question: What is the underpinning principle I need to grasp? 

For flow cytometers, or devices that measure the qualities and quantities of cells moving through a fluid, their room-scale size in the early 2000s meant that they were expensive, difficult to use, and inaccessible to many labs. Lo wanted to democratize access to flow cytometry, which is now commonplace throughout the biotech industry and hospitals around the world. 

In 2009, the Lo Lab shrunk flow cytometers into the first microfluid benchtop systems in the world. Lo helped commercialize that technology via NanoCellect, a San Diego startup he co-founded. A decade later, the bioanalytic technology is used by nearly all major pharmaceutical companies, some of whom relied on NanoCellect’s products to help develop COVID-19 vaccinations. 

“We were able to bring flow cytometry into the individual research lab,” Lo explained. “It’s now a highly user-friendly tool that can be used by graduate students and professionals alike after a few hours of training. It’s been truly transformative in the industry as a workhorse.”

Lo is now coupling NanoCellect’s fluid cytometers with another key biotechnology: the microscope. 

Currently, cell observation and cell analysis have to be done separately. If a particular cell under a microscope needs to be isolated for study, scientists must use microdissection, which cuts the cell away from the rest of the group. The slow and expensive process can cause cell damage and isn’t commonly available. 

Flow cytometers make it simple to isolate cells, but it’s impossible to study cell morphology and other characteristics without microscopy. Lo explained that scientists needed to choose between cell observation without sorting, or cell sorting without observation. 

A breakthrough at his lab changed everything. 

Lo’s lab published the first paper showing that flow cytometry and microscopy can be integrated in a highly compact way, enabling scientists to isolate cells while accessing their genomic information. Lo is “super excited” about expanding access to this combination technology, having played an instrumental role in NanoCellect’s launch of VERLO, the world’s first tabletop image-guided cell sorter. 

His lab has also developed the next generation system, which can produce 3D cell tomography at an unprecedented rate of 1,000 images per second.

Accelerating discoveries 

Lo also serves as the director of the Nano3 facility and SDNI, which is one of 16 nationwide sites hosting NSF-funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure. He described the facility as the “infrastructure providers for the STEM community”; there, engineers and scientists help bring nanotech ideas to life through research, prototyping and commercialization. 

“Our measure of success is how many users we’ve helped and projects we’ve enabled and supported,” Lo said. Last year, Nano3 helped over 70 Ph.D. students complete their thesis and was acknowledged by almost 200 peer-reviewed publications. 

The center takes a supportive role, aiming to transform projects from idea seeds into the backbones of a successful company. 

One such example? Illumina. 

A leader in genomics, Illumina’s next-generation gene sequencing tools benefited greatly from Nano3 through the transition of Nano3’s nanoimprinting process to the company to produce first-of-a-kind gene sequencing flow cells. The supportive, collaborative inventive environment at Nano3 and the Qualcomm Institute echoes Lo’s desire to help others succeed in science and beyond. 

That passion is also what drew him — and Nano3 — to be part of the California DREAMS program. 

Funded by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the California DREAMS coalition unites over 15 universities and industry partners to accelerate American microelectronic development and manufacturing. Under Lo’s direction, Nano3 is set to be one of the Department of Defense’s “lab-to-fab” rapid development facilities that will help scale up new technologies and deploy them at higher speeds. 

Lo looks forward to continued collaboration and a chance to reconnect with his semiconductor roots. At the end of the day, however, he’s excited to see what kinds of new discoveries the alliance will bring. 

“As an engineer, my research is not focused on discovery,” he said. “We are the inventors and enablers — we produce tools of unique capabilities to help scientists make discoveries and accelerate the discovery process.”