Our research program is comprised of both fundamental and applicational aspects of biosensor research. The main objective of our research involves the design of folding-based electrochemical biosensors, with the goal of developing a portable real-time biosensor for point-of-care diagnosis. Our sensing strategy is to link ligand-induced folding in biopolymers (e.g. peptides, nucleic acids) to a robust, electrochemical signaling mechanism (Figure 1). Unlike most optical-based biosensors, these sensors are reagentless, reusable, and insensitive to non-specific interactions of contaminants, thus allowing them to be employed directly in realistically complex media such as blood serum and urine.
