Professor Antje Baeumner’s modular sensor for detecting pathogens  combines a laser-induced cell lysis system, an RNA purification system, a  nucleic acid sequence-based amplification module, and a bio-micro-sensor for  attomol-level detection and quantification of RNA molecules. The hand-held  modular sensor looks much like a home pregnancy test and is just as easy  to use.

Organisms such as B. anthracis, C. parvum, dengue virus, and E. coli are  identified by RNA. As few as five oocysts of C. parvum or 40 cells of E. coli  or 10 dengue viruses per sample can be detected. Semi-quantitative results  take about four hours.

“Recently, we have further improved our detectors, which can now  analyze several types of dengue fever virus at once,” says Baeumner, a  member of the faculty in Biological and Environmental Engineering. “The same  kind of detector could be tailored to find multiple pathogens such as E. coli,  Cryptosporidium, and anthrax, simultaneously.”

In the future, Baeumner’s bioanalytical microsystems are expected to  produce a digital, quantitative read-out in less than half an hour, integrating  signal processing directly on the chip.

Professor Harold Craighead’s research centers on the new science and applications of nanometer-scale devices and structures. The behavior of these structures, with dimensions as small as a few nanometers, can be dominated by effects of size and surface area. The work focuses on advances in the understanding and deliberate manipulation of the physical properties of systems of reduced dimensions.

Present research topics include applications in biochemical analysis, nanofluidics, nanomechanical systems (NEMS), and single molecule studies in biological systems. A professor in Applied and Engineering Physics and director of Cornell’s Nanobiotechnology Center, Craighead is working on efforts to study and understand biological systems at the single molecule level as well as to develop new technologies for use as biological sensors and medical devices.