Yanik Lab Receives $3.7M NIH Grant for Global Health

$3.7M NIH grant funds development of novel biosensor technology for diagnosing viral infections

The SPeeD assay technology overcomes a fundamental problem for biosensors known as the mass transport limit, which refers to the difficulty of getting the target molecules in a sample to the sensor surface efficiently.

OPEN | Published: 16 December 2020

By Tim Stephens

Electrical engineer Ali Yanik is leading a team of infectious disease experts developing a low-cost, easy-to-use platform for diagnosing viral infections in point-of-care settings

UC Santa Cruz News Center ,  Article

Abstract

With a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, he and his collaborators are poised to complete the development and validation of a prototype and begin testing it in the field for detection of dengue fever, yellow fever, and Zika virus infections.

“We’re confident in being able to do this and get it into the field for testing,” said Yanik, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s pretty revolutionary because this is a very simple tool, and yet it is also very sensitive.”

Yanik’s collaborators include infectious disease specialists at Stanford University School of Medicine and at St. George’s University in Grenada. Benjamin Pinsky is medical director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory for Stanford Health Care and has ongoing research projects in Grenada; Desiree LaBeaud is a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford who has been studying insect-borne viral diseases in Kenya and Grenada; and Calum Macpherson is an epidemiologist and dean of graduate studies at St. George’s University and director of the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation (WINDREF).

Full Article: $3.7M NIH grant funds development of novel biosensor technology for diagnosing viral infections, UC Santa Cruz - News Center,  Dec 16 2020.

FEATURED: NIH grant funds development of novel biosensor technology for diagnosing viral infections

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