Invited Speaker

Ke Du

University of California, Riverside

Pneumatic Enabled Nano-Sieve for Sensitive Detection of Pathogens in Blood

We introduce a miniaturized nano-sieve device featuring a pneumatically-regulated chamber for highly efficient pathogen concentration from blood. Integration of this device with CRISPR assay, an on-chip detection limit of approximately 100 cfu/mL is achieved for antibiotic resistant bacteria. We further show an enhanced nano-sieve by incorporating “micro-grooves” for virus sensing.

About Ke Du

Dr. Ke Du is an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside and leads the Nanobiosensing, Nanomanufacturing, and Nanomaterials (3N) Lab. He received his Ph.D. degree at Stevens Institute of Technology in 2015. Following post-doctoral training at Berkeley with Richard A. Mathies, he started his independent career at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2018. In 2022, Du’s lab moved back to California and joined UC-Riverside.

Du’s research interests include in vitro molecular diagnostics, in vivo bioimaging, nanotoxicity, and nanomanufacturing.

He is recipient of numerous awards and honors such as the EIPBN Best Journal Paper Award (2022), the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (2021), the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) Collaborative Travel Grant (2019), and the James H. Potter Award for the outstanding Ph.D. students (2014).

He has been recognized as a global rising star in sensing by ACS Sensors and a finalist for the MINE 2020 Young Scientists Award. Du’s research has been supported by NIGMS, NIAID, NSF, USDA, DOE, BWF, the UNYTE Translational Research Network, and industry partners such as L3Harris, Mammoth Biosciences, Colgate Palmolive, and Biological Mimetics. He serves as an early career editorial advisory member for Biomicrofluidics (AIP Publishing) and Sensors and Actuators Reports (Elsevier).

Ke Du