Dr. Katsuo Kurabayashi
Chair and Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
https://engineering.nyu.edu/faculty/katsuo-kurabayashi
Abstract
Immunosensors are biosensing devices designed to detect and quantify specific target molecules through antibody-antigen interactions. They are biosensors that combine biological elements with a mechanism to recognize proteins, DNA molecules, or enzymes and produce output optical and electrical signals These devices hold great promise as versatile tools extensively utilized in medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and food safety testing. However, despite their potential, many immunosensors still demonstrate limited performance when employed in critical care medicine. This is particularly critical as they are required for diagnosing and monitoring life-threatening immune disorders and hyper-inflammatory reactions resulting from severe infections, trauma, surgery, and immunotherapy side effects. This talk discusses our ongoing research efforts to advance immunosensor technology for critical care of septic shock by manipulating biomolecular transport, sorting cells, and automating biochemical assay processes in a microfluidic environment. Our methods involve stochastic molecular sorting by ATP-fuelled motor proteins extracted from cells, electrokinetic antigen molecule convection and affinity enhancement, surface marker-targeted cell sorting, and single-molecule digital counting immunoassay.
About Dr. Katsuo Kurabayashi
Katsuo Kurabayashi is a Professor and Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Prior to his appointment at NYU starting in June, 2023, he was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received a B.S. in Precision Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1992, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University, CA, in 1994 and 1998, respectively. His current research focuses on optofluidics, nanoplasmonic and biomolecular biosensing, and BioMEMS/microsystems for immunoassay, clinical diagnosis, single-cell study, and analytical chemistry. He has authored and co-authored 180 peer-reviewed papers and holds 13 U.S. patents. He received a 2001 NSF Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award, and the Robert Caddell Memorial Award in 2005, the Pi Tau Sigma Outstanding Professor Award in 2007, the University of Michigan Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award in 2013, the Ted Kennedy Award in 2015, and the Wise-Najafi Prize for Engineering Excellence in the Miniature World in 2019 from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).