News

The WVU Shared Research Facilities Microfabrication Cleanroom is contributing to a five-year, $2.20 million NIH/National Cancer Institute R01 led by Principal Investigator Dr. Margaret Bennewitz, with Dr. Trieu Nguyen serving as Co-Principal Investigator and leading the microfabrication component.

Dr. Nguyen, Co-PI and Manager of the SRF Microfabrication Cleanroom, will direct the in-house design and fabrication of custom 3D “tumor-on-a-chip” devices. These miniature devices will grow small clusters of breast cancer cells beside blood-vessel-like channels carrying flowing nutrients, creating controlled laboratory models of how an imaging agent moves from the bloodstream into a tumor.

WVU Shared Research Facilities Center Will Host a Free One-Day Vacuum Technology Workshop

Date: Thursday, June 12, 2025
Time: 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: Engineering Science Building, ESB G83, WVU

We are pleased to announce the awarding of the NIH R15 supplemental grant for our research which aims to:

Dr. Margaret Bennewitz (PI) and Dr. Trieu Nguyen (Co-I) are collaborating on this project, which will make use of WVU's Shared Research Facilities Cleanrooms for device fabrication.

A Zeiss Crossbeam 550L focused ion beam - scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM) has been ordered by the WVU SRF. The brand new system will be housed in the Electron Microscopy Facilities at the Engineering Science Building. The order follows a thorough evaluation process by a technical committee composed of representative faculty and researchers at WVU. Various candidate systems from renowned manufacturers were evaluated and the Zeiss system was determined to be the most suitable. Given manufacturing lead times and special site requirements, the new FIB-SEM is expected to be available to researchers by Summer 2025. It will find widespread applications in metallurgy, ceramics, composites, polymers, geology, arts, biology, pharmaceuticals, forensics, and other disciplines.

For the first time ever, LIBS (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) technology has been introduced to a microscope. Salient features include:

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a nanometer level surface-sensitive quantitative spectroscopic technique based on the photoelectric effect that can identify the elemental composition, their chemical states, and density of the electronic states in materials. At the WVU Shared Facilities, a PHI VersaProbeTM XPS system is available and heavily utilized by researchers across the campus. In this 2-hour Webinar, I will,

Audience: 

A new digital microscope––the Keyence VHX-7000N––is now available to researchers in the Evansdale cleanroom.

For further information, training, and access, contact  Harley Hart.

The Shared Research Facilities (SRF) is exploring options to upgrade Scanning Electron Microscopy capabilities within the Electron Microscopy Facilities (EMF). A request for federal funding (CDS) was recently submitted for FY 2023. In the meantime, an initial survey of current and potential users identified the following desired capabilities in the new system:

To help decide on the best combination to address current and future research needs, the SRF will be hosting different manufacturers to present their products and capabilities over the next few weeks. The presentations will be in-person and will also be accessible via the web. Recordings could be made be available on request for later viewing. The tentative dates  and times of the presentations are as follows: