Sensor Development

In order to meet the pace and volume of food supply chain monitoring, we aim to develop an innovative, inexpensive, and portable multiplexed sensor platform capable of quantitative measurement of heavy metals, antibiotics, and drug residues on-site. The multiplexed nature of the platform will allow for detection of multiple contaminants in real-time.
Our approach involve using nanoparticles that can report analyte presence through changes in optical signal. These particles are cheap to produce and are stable under a wide range of storage conditions. Specific molecular recognition is being engineered in two ways: 1) non-covalent attachment of polymers to the particle, and 2) attachment of nanobodies, a biological recognition molecule, to the nanomaterial transducer.

Related Publications

1. Gong, Xun, Soo-Yeon Cho, Sydney Kuo, Babatunde Ogunlade, Kathryn Tso, Daniel P. Salem, and Michael S. Strano. “Divalent Metal Cation Optical Sensing Using Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Corona Phase Molecular Recognition.” Analytical Chemistry 94, no. 47 (November 29, 2022): 16393–401. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.2c03648.

2. Gong, Xun, Nicholas Renegar, Retsef Levi, and Michael S. Strano. “Machine Learning for the Discovery of Molecular Recognition Based on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Corona-Phases.” Npj Computational Materials 8, no. 1 (June 28, 2022): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-022-00795-7.

3. Swofford, Charles A., Sarah A. Nordeen, Lu Chen, Mahaam M. Desai, Joanna Chen, Stacy L. Springs, Thomas U. Schwartz, and Anthony J. Sinskey. “Structure and Specificity of an Anti-Chloramphenicol Single Domain Antibody for Detection of Amphenicol Residues.” Protein Science: A Publication of the Protein Society 31, no. 11 (November 2022): e4457. https://doi.org/10.1002/pro.4457.