Microfluidics for chemotaxis and system biology
Sophysticated arrangments of microscopic channels can be rapidly made from elastomers using photolithography. Microfluidics allows creating custom tailored concentration profiles of different chemicals. Living cells in the microchannles can be viewed under a microscope and exposed to chemoattractants with micron precision in space and precise timing.

Non-linear microfluidic devices
Design of fluidic devices analogous to electronic circuits was an active area in 60th and 70th. They worked at high Re and could not be miniaturized. Using flows of polymer solutions, we have constructed a few prototype microscopic fluidic devices, a flip-flop, a diode and a current stabilizer. They operate non-linearly at low Reynolds numbers.

Polymer fluid dynamics and elastic turbulence
We study dynamics and transition in flows of polymer solutions. They are viscoelastic liquids, they carry elastic stresses and have non-linear mechanical properties. We found many unusual phenomena in polymer solutions flows, including elastic turbulence, which develops at vanishingly small Reynolds numbers, Re.

Mixing in flows
Mixing in chaotic and turbulent flows is an important practical problem and hot field in modern fluid mechanics. We experimentally studied mixing in a channel in a smooth random flow, the Batchelor regime, and found excellent agreement with the theory. We continue this work and will extend it to chemically reacting environment.