ECE Assistant Professor Umer Hassan is the recipient of a research grant from New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF) for the project titled “Microfluidic Biosensor for Monitoring Inflammation Biomarkers for Sepsis Patients Stratification.” This is a 1-year pilot project awarded at $35,000. The project will enable the development of a next generation in-vitro diagnostic platform for sepsis biomarkers quantification from a drop of whole blood. The 3D printed platform will integrate microfluidic chip, sample processing, and smartphone based optical sensing enabled by fluorescent microscopy principles. Immune system measurements will be taken including quantifying CD64 protein expression on white blood cells (which spikes in the first 2-6 hours after infection) and HLA-DR expression on monocytes which indicates disease progression and the efficacy of treatment. Sensors will be benchmarked with patient clinical samples from Robert Wood Johnson Medical Hospital. The sensor will have the capability to be used at the point-of-care in multiple health-care settings. More details about the NJHF research grants program can be found here.
Congratulations Umer!