Hanhao Zhang 

BioE Ph.D. Proposal 

January 22, 2024 

1:00 PM 

Location: Room 4029, EBB Krone building at Georgia Tech 

Zoom Link:
https://gatech.zoom.us/j/7974652626?omn=92353009608  

Committee: 

Aniruddh Sarkar, Ph.D. (Ph.D. Advisor) (Biomedical Engineering, GT) 

Hang Lu, Ph.D. (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, GT) 

Wilbur Lam, M.D., Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering, GT & Emory) 

Xuezheng Song, Ph.D. (Department of Biochemistry, Emory) 

Omer Inan, Ph.D. (Electrical and Computer Engineering, GT) 

Microscale Tools for High-Throughput Multiplexed Antibody Fc Profiling-Based Biomarker Discovery and Detection

Diagnosis of various endemic infectious diseases remains a challenge due to lack of sensitive and specific biomarkers which can be detected inexpensively. Biomarker discovery and detection currently suffer from cost-benefit trade-offs resulting from sample requirement, large size and cost of testing equipment. Antibodies are good targets for inexpensive sample-sparing diagnostic tests thanks to their amplified abundant amounts produced by immune system. While antibody titer alone is inadequate for diagnosis, the properties of Fc region on antibodies have been recently shown to correlate with disease state in various infectious diseases. Yet current assays targeting Fc properties are sample and labor extensive if large numbers of analytes and samples are involved. The objective of this proposal is to develop universal microscale tools that can perform 1. Biomarker discovery including antibody titer and Fc properties and 2. Detection of selected biomarkers via high efficiency, low cost and simple operations. A universal chip utilizing protein microarrays and microfluidics will be developed to perform high-throughput multiplexed biomarker discovery. The platform will then be used to discover biomarkers for diseases including Tuberculosis and Schistosomiasis. Finally, a microfabricated electronic sensor will be developed to detect selected biomarkers in samples via electrochemically induced metal deposition and resistance measurement.