An aspect of my research is to develop nanopore technique for various applications in biotechnology at the single molecule level. The engineered nanopores have a variety of new functional properties that could be used as a basis for making sensors. Since the data obtained are not obscured by the average values that are inherent in conventional chemical and biochemical experiments, single-molecule detection provides information about the distribution and time trajectories that would otherwise be hidden by the statistical mean. We are especially interested in the development of biosensors for bio-terrorist/bio-defense chemicals, environmental pollutants, toxins, DNA and protein molecules.
In addition, we are also interested in the direct and in-situ environmental monitoring and medical diagnosis. One of the greatest challenges of the development of biosensor technology is its practical application. Most of the current biosensor techniques still focus on detecting analytes in pure water or low matrix samples, which restricts its usage to the laboratory research only. We are interested in moving biosensors out of the laboratory and into commercial applications, for example, to develop sensing techniques that could be employed in the analysis of environmental and biological samples, and for the application in field detection.
