Dr. Sam Au

Biography

Sam Au is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London and serves as Assistant Director of the CRUK Convergence Science Centre. His research group focuses on using lab-on-chip microdevices to address critical issues related to cancer metastasis and drug development through collaborative efforts with biologists, clinicians, and physical scientists. His research has received funding from prominent organizations, including Cancer Research UK, Medical Research Council, InnovateUK, Bone Cancer Research Trust, and the Wellcome Trust. In 2025, Sam co-founded two Imperial spin-off companies leveraging microfluidic technologies developed in his laboratory: Avigen Ltd, which selects cell candidates for immunotherapy, and Precision Microbubbles Ltd, which focuses on drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier using ultrasound-responsive microbubbles. He also established the MRes Cancer Technology program at Imperial College, overviews the CRUK Microfabrication Prototyping Facility, and has held various editorial roles, including Associate Scientific Advisor at Science Translational Medicine. Before joining Imperial, Sam was a Tosteson Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Professor Mehmet Toner at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he developed microfluidic models to study circulating tumor cell clusters traversing narrow vessels in the body. Sam obtained his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Professor Aaron Wheeler's group at the University of Toronto in 2013 and a BSc in Chemical Engineering in 2008.

Research Interests