 Science is fluid, with currents running in many different directions. But on Okinawa shores, they converge in exciting ways. For one OIST scientist, it's all part of the flow. Hello, I'm Amy Shen. I study microfluidics at OIST. Amy Shen knows all about fluidity in science. As head of the micro-bio-nanofluidics unit, she investigates how fluids behave on the small scale to reveal their hidden properties. Yeah, microfluidics, it's essentially fluids at small land scales. And we're interested in how liquids move in small land scales, such as on the order of a single hair strand or something even smaller. Fluids that are complex, such as blood and paint, contain a lot of tiny objects in the liquid. So how they flow and how do you manipulate them can be very different when they operate in large scale pipes versus small glass capillaries. Even at OIST, Amy's unit stands out for its range of scientists. A mash-up of all types of discipline, carried out by people from 11 countries. OIST gives me a lot of flexibility in terms of recruiting students. I can recruit students with very different educational background, research experience. At the moment, I have students in chemistry, in biology, in engineering. So everyone kind of work together as a big team and make different contributions. For Amy herself, there's something that helps her reach her own state of flow. I like trans music, so it's kind of electronic, electronic dance music. Especially when I work, if I have to write papers, trans music helps me to focus. It's a soundtrack for science, with the rhythm of the background for a unit full of innovation. I work basically on making microfluidic immunoassay devices, in simple words, diagnostic devices. I can bring in my engineering background, my bio-background and chemistry background, which is very, very useful for my research here. I'm working on some particle image velocimetry, and basically I study very small scale flows of interesting liquids. So here at OIST, we have the unique ability to make really small microchannels, and typically people study these types of flows at very large scales. So by being able to shrink down to a smaller scale, we can study very interesting physics. And it's not all theory. The researchers in this unit have developed a practical proof of concept that could soon be adopted worldwide. This is the world's smallest spectrophotometer that we've made in our lab. This tiny box is a miniaturized biotech apparatus, and gathers data by shining light onto a chip covered in gold nanostructures. What we can use this for is essentially early diagnosis of a disease right at the site of the patient, in contrast to the massive instruments which are currently used in pharmaceutical labs. So it's very easy to operate, and it's very cheap to manufacture. And so we hope it will become very affordable, especially for developing countries and clinics. From the smallest microcurrents to human-scale technology, the flow of science continues to mix, giving fascinating results for Amy and her team. We are very diverse with different research education and culture background. And so it's a very fun group just to learn from each other and to achieve the same goal.