SSreenivasan-01
Self-powered biosensors for rapid diagnostics
Health, Human Disease & Diagnostics
Preferred major field of study or minimum required skills
The project will design novel nanomaterials (e.g., graphene) to develop self-powered biosensors, which will work without external power (e.g., batteries). The project will include materials synthesis, device formulation, and electrochemical detection or sensing of biomolecules. Basic knowledge of electrochemistry and material synthesis will benefit the project. In addition to enhancing their basic skills, the training will enhance the student’s understanding of fundamental material properties.
Scholarly significance/intellectual merit
Biosensors, devices used to detect a biological analyte's presence and/or concentration, are ubiquitous in our daily lives. For example, abnormal glucose levels in our blood can cause significant health issues, including kidney failure, blindness, heart attack, etc. Early detection of diabetes, especially in low- and middle-income countries, is still a big challenge due to the lack of access to point-of-care (POC) glucose biosensors. Hence, developing low-cost point of care biosensors is a critical unmet need. The proposed research to design and build novel nanomaterial-based non-enzymatic glucose biosensors will aim to develop sensors to address the limitations of current enzymatic biosensors that are primarily dependent on glucose oxidase and oxygen to perform accurate measurements. The study will also explore new low-dime nsional heterostructures and functionalization methods, providing new scientific insights into the design and operation of novel high-performance, self-powered biosensors.
Research question(s)
- Synthesize nanomaterials and heterostructures with tailored properties
- Characterize their structure and activity towards electrochemical process
- Develop novel device designs for self-powered biosensors using the synthesized materials
- Develop foundational knowledge regarding the structure-property-activity correlation in the designed materials
Methods/techniques/instruments to be learned/utilized
As part of the project, the students will learn about different synthetic methods (sol-gel, CVD, sonochemical, etc.); diverse spectroscopic, microscopic, and electrochemical techniques (Ramana, AFM, XRD, CV, etc.), electrochemical device fabrication, biosensor studies, in addition to fundamental data analysis and manuscript or report preparation.