Research

Our research at E-Bio-E lab is highly interdisciplinary and involves device engineering, applied physics, material engineering, surface chemistry, microfluidics, and cellular biology/microbiology.

With an ultimate goal of improving healthcare, we work on multifaceted projects to create advanced sensing methods. Current projects include:

(i) [Funded by NSF, Penn State] Electrochemical sensors for measuring physiological and environmental analytes

  • Y. Lei #, D. Butler #, M. Lucking, F. Zhang, T. Xia, K. Fujisawa, T. Granzier-Nakajima, R. Cruz-Silva, M. Endo, H. Terrones, M. Terrones*, and A. Ebrahimi*, Single-Atom Doping of MoS2 with Manganese Enables Ultrasensitive Detection of Dopamine: Experimental and Computational Approach, Science Advances (2020) 6:eabc4250 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/32/eabc4250; Penn State News; NSF Research News
  • A. Ebrahimi*, K. Zhang, C. Dong, S. Subramanian, D. Butler, A. Bolotsky, L. Goodnight, Y. Cheng, J. A. Robinson*, FeSx-Graphene Heterostructures: Nanofabrication-Compatible Catalysts for Ultra-Sensitive Electrochemical Detection of Hydrogen Peroxide, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 285 (2019) 631-638 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2018.12.033

(ii) [Funded by NIH, Foundations, Penn State] Investigating and application of novel sensor platforms for in situ, label-free microbial analysis

  • K. Zhou, V. Kammarchedu, D. Butler, P. Soltan Khamsi, and A. Ebrahimi*, Electrochemical Sensors based on MoSx-functionalized Laser Induced Graphene for Real-time Monitoring of Phenazines produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Advanced Healthcare Materials (2022) [accepted]
  • D. Butler and A. Ebrahimi*, Rapid and sensitive detection of viral particles by coupling redox cycling and
    electrophoretic enrichment, Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2022) [in press] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2022.114198
  • A. Bolotsky, R. Muralidharan, D. Butler, K. Root, W. Murray, Z. Liu, and A. Ebrahimi*, Organic Redox-Active Crystalline Layers for Reagent-free Electrochemical Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing (ORACLE-AST), Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2020), accepted
  • Keren Zhou #, Chen Zhou #, Anjali Sapre, Jared Henry Pavlock, Ashley Weaver, Ritvik Muralidharan, Joshua Noble, Jasna Kovac, Zhiwen Liu*, Aida Ebrahimi*, Dynamic Laser Speckle Imaging meets Machine Learning to enable Rapid Antibacterial Susceptibility Testing (DyRAST), bioRxiv (2020)
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.926071v1
  • D. Butler, N. Goel, L. Goodnight, S. Tadigadapa, and A. Ebrahimi*, Detection of Bacterial Metabolism in Lag-Phase using Impedance Spectroscopy of Agar-integrated 3D Microelectrodes, Biosensors and Bioelectronics 129 (2019) 269-276 DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2018.09.057

(iii) [Funded by NSF] Engineering nanomaterials and developing printable biosensors and systems

  • V. Kammarchedu and A. Ebrahimi*, Advancing Electrochemical Screening using a Customizable Machine Learning-based Multimodal System, IEEE Sensors Letters (2023) [accepted]
  • D. Butler, V. Kammarchedu, K. Zhou, L. Peeke, L. Lyle, D. W. Snyder, and A. Ebrahimi*, Cellulose-Based Laser-Induced Graphene Devices for Electrochemical Monitoring of Bacterial Phenazine Production and Viability, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical (2023) [accepted]
  • V. Kammarchedu, D. Butler, and A. Ebrahimi*, A machine learning-based multimodal electrochemical analytical device based on eMoSx-LIG for multiplexed detection of tyrosine and uric acid in sweat and saliva, Analytica Chimica Acta (2022) [accepted][Penn State News]
  • D. Butler, D. Moore, N. Glavin, J. Robinson, A. Ebrahimi*, Facile Post-Deposition Annealing of Graphene Ink Enables Ultrasensitive Electrochemical Detection of Dopamine, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2021) accepted
  • R. Muralidharan, V. Chandrashekhar, D. Butler, and A. Ebrahimi*, A Smartphone-Interfaced, Flexible Electrochemical Biosensor based on Graphene Ink for Selective Detection of Dopamine, IEEE Sensors (2020) – in press https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9126813

(iv) [Before Penn State] Nature-inspired biosensors to beat classical limits

Our collaborators and sponsors:
Dr. Joshua Robinson, Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University (PSU)
Dr. Mauricio Terrones, Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, PSU
Dr. Zhiwen Liu, Electrical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Jasna Kovac, Food Science, PSU
Dr. Esther Gomez, Chemical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Jian Yang, Biomedical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Scott Medina, Biomedical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Morteza Kayyalha, Electrical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Mehdi Kiani, Electrical Engineering, PSU
Dr. Lauren Zarzar, Chemistry, PSU
Dr. Joan Redwing, Materials Science and Engineering, PSU
Dr. Chris Siedlecki, Surgery and Bioengineering (College of Medicine), PSU
Dr. Girish Kirimanjeswara, Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, PSU
Dr. David Snyder, Applied Research Lab (ARL), PSU
Dr. Luke Lyle, Applied Research Lab (ARL), PSU
Dr. Elizabeth Bess, Departments of Chemistry and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, UC Irvine
Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Humberto Terrones, Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Harish Subbaraman, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boise State University
Dr. David Estrada, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boise State University
Air Force Research Lab, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH