Charlie
Mace
Associate Professor
Chemistry
Bioanalytical and Materials Chemistry.
To solve outstanding problems in global health, the Mace Lab applies a multidisciplinary approach combining aspects of analytical chemistry, materials science, and engineering. The primary goal of the Mace lab is to develop low cost, patient-centric technologies that can improve access to healthcare. To achieve this, the Mace Lab designs devices that improve the self-collection of blood and enable the diagnosis of diseases in resource-limited settings, and they are exploring ways the methods that are developed in the lab can used by others. Their main techniques leverage the properties of paper and other porous materials to integrate function into simple, affordable devices.
Unique to laboratories in Chemistry departments, his group specializes in handling human blood and saliva. Technologies developed in the Mace lab have made the leap to clinical sites in Africa, South America, and the US, owing to their network of clinical, academic, and industry collaborators. The Mace Lab has broad expertise in assay development and device prototyping, which they apply to evaluating the efficacy of candidate therapeutics, performing separations that lead to new measurements, and making field-deployable kits for point-of-care testing. They have additional expertise in instrument development, phase separation in systems of polymers, and microfluidics.