Continuous sensors are available in society and are used by patients to monitor their glucose levels. However, continuous sensing is not yet available for monitoring low-concentration molecules such as proteins, drugs, and nucleic acids. That's what we want to achieve!
The sensing technologies that are being developed in the Molecular Biosensing group (MBx, see
www.tue.nl/mbx) are unique in the world. The sensors are based on reversible single-molecule interactions, for the continuous monitoring of biomolecules at low concentrations. The sensing platform is called Biosensing by Particle Motion (BPM), using particles on a sensing surface that change their motion due to the binding of analyte molecules.
The MBx group has trans-disciplinary research approaches, including molecular bioengineering, advanced data analysis, and optical microscopies. In your PhD project, you will study biomolecular sensor architectures, conjugations, data analysis, sensor precision, calibrations, etc.
The PhD project is part of the
iControl collaboration that includes TU Eindhoven, Erasmus Medical Center, Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research, and several companies (
https://www.nwo.nl/en/projects/20854). Publications about the BPM sensing technology are listed on
https://www.heliabiomonitoring.com/publications.
The MBx group initiated and organizes the international competition on Sensors for Health (
www.sensus.org) and the international symposium on Continuous Real-time Biomolecular Sensing (
https://symposium.sensus.org/first-international-symposium-on-continuous-real-time-biomolecular-sensing/). Laboratories are shared with the Protein Engineering research group (
www.tue.nl/proteinengineering) and the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (
www.tue.nl/icms).