The ChBE 2019 Fall Seminar will be held at 3:15 p.m.–4:30 p.m. October 23 in the auditorium at Perlstein Hall.

The seminar will feature Mudassir Rashid, an Illinois Tech senior research associate in chemical and biological engineering. His presentation is titled “Bridging Process Systems Engineering and Biological Sciences: Modeling and Control of Drug Delivery in Diabetes.”

Abstract

Deterioration in the glucose control mechanism and the subsequent failure to counter harmful deviations in the blood glucose levels has a significant relevance to health and wellbeing.  The cost of care for people with diabetes now accounts for almost a quarter of the total health care dollars spent in the U.S., with total costs exceeding $327 billion.  Diabetes, a chronic disease with no current cure, occurs when the pancreas does not produce sufficient insulin, a vital hormone for regulating blood glucose levels, or when the body cannot effectively utilize the insulin produced.  About 5 to 10% of the diabetes cases are type 1 diabetes, where the body cannot produce insulin and patients must administer insulin by injections or insulin pumps.  Process systems engineering has the potential to significantly advance the automation of drug delivery and improve the regulation of blood glucose levels.  The major challenges to automating drug delivery include the lack of accurate first-principles models, limited measurement variables, process uncertainties, and nonlinear and time-varying system dynamics.  This talk will highlight these challenges and describe a number of novel process systems engineering algorithms developed by our lab in recent years to address these problems.

Short Biography

Mudassir Rashid obtained his B.Eng. and Ph.D. from McMaster University (Hamilton, CA) in 2011 and 2016, respectively.  His research interests are in the general area of process systems engineering, with emphasis on mathematical modeling and automation of drug delivery and modeling and control of biopharmaceutical processes. He has published more than 40 manuscripts in referred journals and conference proceedings.  Among his accomplishments are the NSERC and Ontario Doctoral Scholarships, and the McMaster Teaching Assistant Award.