The assistant professor of physics presented "An optical biosensor for point-of-care medical diagnostics" at the 24th Anniversary World Congress on Biosensors held May 27-30, 2014, in Melbourne, Australia.
Biosensors are devices that detect and report the quantity of a particular biomolecule. The most comercially sucessful examples are the home pregnancy test, which measures the concentration of the ‘pregnancy hormone’ hCG, and the glucose monitor, which indirectly measures glucose levels in the blood.
New generations of bioensors are able to detect an enormous variety of materials, from hazardous bacteria to pollutants. They may enable real-time monitoring of drug concentrations in patients, or may even be able to sequence single strands of DNA. These sensors will enable enormous advances in food safety, environmental monitoring, and personalized medicine.
Evans’ paper decribed a new biosensing mechanism which may enable the detection of a broad range of targeted biomolecules in a platform that is both inexpensive and portable. This new device may be useful in providing rapid medical diagnostic procedures in remote regions of the world without access to diagnostic laboratories.
Work on the biosensor began as a SURE project with Elon College Fellow Jaden Wilkes ’13 and continues under the efforts of chemistry major Aaron Neaves ’15.