Leyla Soleymani is a scientist and Canada Research Chair at McMaster University's faculty of engineering. Her research includes the development of advanced materials for biosensing and repellent surfaces. [1]
Soleymani received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2010 under the mentorship of Ted Sargent. Her dissertation was entitled "Ultrasensitive Detection of Nucleic Acids using an Electronic Chip". [2]
In 2019, Soleymani developed a plastic wrap that repels pathogens such as the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from surfaces. [3] [4] In 2020, this wrap is being adapted for halting the spread of COVID-19. [5]
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips. It is a multiple-step photolithographic and physico-chemical process during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer, typically made of pure single-crystal semiconducting material. Silicon is almost always used, but various compound semiconductors are used for specialized applications.
A biosensor is an analytical device, used for the detection of a chemical substance, that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector. The sensitive biological element, e.g. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell receptors, enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids, etc., is a biologically derived material or biomimetic component that interacts with, binds with, or recognizes the analyte under study. The biologically sensitive elements can also be created by biological engineering. The transducer or the detector element, which transforms one signal into another one, works in a physicochemical way: optical, piezoelectric, electrochemical, electrochemiluminescence etc., resulting from the interaction of the analyte with the biological element, to easily measure and quantify. The biosensor reader device connects with the associated electronics or signal processors that are primarily responsible for the display of the results in a user-friendly way. This sometimes accounts for the most expensive part of the sensor device, however it is possible to generate a user friendly display that includes transducer and sensitive element. The readers are usually custom-designed and manufactured to suit the different working principles of biosensors.
Charles Peter DeLisi is an American biomedical scientist and the Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering at Boston University. He is noted for major contributions to the initiation of the Human Genome Project, for transformative academic leadership, and for research contributions to mathematical and computational immunology, cell biophysics, genomics and protein and nucleic acid structure and function. Recent activities include mathematical finance and climate change.
Nanotechnology is impacting the field of consumer goods, several products that incorporate nanomaterials are already in a variety of items; many of which people do not even realize contain nanoparticles, products with novel functions ranging from easy-to-clean to scratch-resistant. Examples of that car bumpers are made lighter, clothing is more stain repellant, sunscreen is more radiation resistant, synthetic bones are stronger, cell phone screens are lighter weight, glass packaging for drinks leads to a longer shelf-life, and balls for various sports are made more durable. Using nanotech, in the mid-term modern textiles will become "smart", through embedded "wearable electronics", such novel products have also a promising potential especially in the field of cosmetics, and has numerous potential applications in heavy industry. Nanotechnology is predicted to be a main driver of technology and business in this century and holds the promise of higher performance materials, intelligent systems and new production methods with significant impact for all aspects of society.
Anti-scratch coating is a type of protective coating or film applied to an object's surface for mitigation against scratches. Scratches are small surface-level cuts left on a surface following interaction with a sharper object. Anti-scratch coatings provide scratch resistances by containing tiny microscopic materials with scratch-resistant properties. Scratch resistance materials come in the form of additives, filters, and binders. Besides materials, scratch resistances is impacted by coating formation techniques. Scratch resistance is measured using the Scratch-hardness test. Commercially, anti-scratch coatings are used in the automotive, optical, photographic, and electronics industries, where resale and/or functionality is impaired by scratches. Anti-scratch coatings are of growing importance as traditional scratch resistance materials like metals and glass are replaced with low-scratch resistant plastics.
Steffanie A. Strathdee is a Harold Simon Distinguished Professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Co-Director at the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics. She is known for her work on HIV research and prevention programmes in Tijuana.
The centrifugal micro-fluidic biochip or centrifugal micro-fluidic biodisk is a type of lab-on-a-chip technology, also known as lab-on-a-disc, that can be used to integrate processes such as separating, mixing, reaction and detecting molecules of nano-size in a single piece of platform, including a compact disk or DVD. This type of micro-fluidic biochip is based upon the principle of microfluidics to take advantage of non-inertial pumping; for lab-on-a-chip devices using non-inertial valves and switches under centrifugal force and Coriolis effect, this is in order to distribute fluids about the disks in a highly parallel order.
Suman Chakraborty is a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and Sir J. C. Bose National Fellow. He has been the first in the history of IIT Kharagpur to be bestowed by the National Award for Teachers in the Higher Education Category by the honourable President of India. He is also Institute Chair Professor Awardee of 2023. He has served as the Dean, Research and Development, Associate Dean and the Head of the School of Medical Science and Technology of the Institute. He has also been National Academy of Engineering Chair Professor. He joined the Institute in 2002 as Assistant Professor and has been a Full Professor since 2008.
Teixobactin is a peptide-like secondary metabolite of some species of bacteria, that kills some gram-positive bacteria. It appears to belong to a new class of antibiotics, and harms bacteria by binding to lipid II and lipid III, important precursor molecules for forming the cell wall.
Kastus Technologies is an Irish multinational nanotechnology company that specialises in patented, visible-light-activated, photocatalytic, antimicrobial coatings. These coatings prevent the growth of bacteria on surfaces such as ceramics, glass, and touchscreens, with no negative side effects for the end user. Founded in Dublin in 2014, Kastus’ antimicrobial coatings were in development for over 10 years as part of a collaboration with Dublin Institute of Technology and the Advanced Materials and Bio Engineering Research (AMBER) Centres.
Renee Elizabeth Sockett is a professor and microbiologist in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She is a world-leading expert on Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, a species of predatory bacteria.
Cynthia B. Whitchurch is an Australian microbiologist. Whitchurch is a research group leader at the Quadram Institute on the Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom and was previously the founding director of the Microbial Imaging Facility and a Research Group Leader in the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Innovation at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in New South Wales.
Professor Alison Todd is holder of 18 patents, and a co-founder and chief scientific officer of SpeeDx. The company manufactures and sells tests for detecting infectious pathogens and identifying antibiotic resistance. The biomedical company, co-founded by Todd, develops diagnostic tools. Todd mentors younger scientists and entrepreneurs, as well as advocating for greater gender diversity in leaders in STEM. ‘Nearly 60 per cent of medical science and health graduates are women, but we hold only 20 per cent of senior leadership positions in the field’.
Jennifer Margaret Heemstra is a Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research makes use of the ability of nucleic acids to self-assemble and recognise other molecules. Alongside her research, Heemstra is a science communicator and writes a regular column for Chemical & Engineering News.
Brian T. Cunningham is an American engineer, researcher and academic. He is a Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a professor of bioengineering.
Gerardo Turcatti is a Swiss-Uruguayan chemist who specialises in chemical biology and drug discovery. He is a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and director of the Biomolecular Screening Facility at the School of Life Sciences there.
Antje Baeumner is a German chemist who is Professor and Director of the Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Chemo- and Biosensors at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Her research considers biosensors and lab-on-a-chip devices for the detection of pathogenic organisms.
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University focused on bridging the gap between academia and industry by drawing inspiration from nature's design principles to solve challenges in health care and the environment. It is focused on the field of biologically inspired engineering to be distinct from bioengineering and biomedical engineering. The institute also has a focus on applications, intellectual property generation, and commercialization.
Lori Lee Burrows is a Canadian microbiologist. She is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Microbe-Surface Interactions at McMaster University.
Z. Hugh Fan is a US-based biomedical engineer, chemist, scientist, inventor, and academic. Hugh Fan is the Steve and Louise Scott Excellence Fellow and Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida (UF). At UF, he is Director of the Microfluidics and BioMEMS Laboratory, a research lab and part of the Interdisciplinary Microsystems Group (IMG). Hugh Fan is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is known for his pioneering work in microfluidics in the early 1990s, while his research work spans microfluidics, biomedical microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS), sensors, cancer and medical diagnostics, and pathogen and virus detection. Hugh Fan's work has significantly contributed to the development of lab-on-a-chip technologies and microfluidic devices for various biomedical applications. He has developed microfluidic devices using aptamers, special DNA or RNA sequences, to isolate and study different types of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood, offering an alternative to antibody-based methods. In 2018, Hugh Fan and John Lednicky co-led a team at the University of Florida that developed a rapid, cost-effective point-of-care test for the Zika virus. Their work with C. Y. Wu on SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 helped change the opinion on virus transmission route from “droplets” in 2020 to “airborne” in 2021.