Molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases will become ubiquitous over the next few years. We will examine why this is the case, and why it is not likely that sequencing will turn out to be the answer for all medical diagnostic needs. There will be competing needs at both ends of the disease diagnostic scale spectrum, from mobile phone-enabled home tests to laboratories that process thousands of samples daily. The speaker's team has developed a broad-spectrum microarray with probes capable of identifying over 7,000 sequenced bacteria, virus, and fungal species. This will be used as an example of how the field of photonics might be challenged to provide greater speed and sensitivity at a lower cost/sample than is achievable with current array platforms, at both ends of the disease diagnostic scale spectrum.


Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 10:30. Blue Lecture Room

Hosted by Prof. Valerio Pruneri