Researchers in the lab of Professor Hong Susan Zhou are developing a biosensor that doctors and nurses can use to quickly detect Clostridium difficile, a dangerous and sometimes fatal gastrointestinal infection. The sensor is designed to be the heart of a handheld device that can be used onsite in doctor’s offices and nursing homes, providing results in minutes instead of days, avoiding the need to send samples out to commercial labs, and making it possible to start treatment earlier, when it is likelier to be more successful. Read more here.

WPI Chemical Engineering Professor Hong Susan Zhou has received an NSF award for her project titled "Rapid, Sensitive, and Convenient Toxin Detection of C. difficile in a Low-cost Acrylic Microfluidic Platform." Clostridium difficile is the most common infectious cause of diarrhea in hospitalized patients. Current commercially available tests for Clostridium difficile cannot meet all the requirements of being rapid, low cost, sensitive, and selective. This proposed project will develop portable, easy-to-fabricate acrylic microfluidic devices based on novel electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis of Clostridium difficile enabled by nanospiked electrode surfaces. Such electrodes will likely enhance the sensitivity thanks to the high area-to-volume ratio and small size of nanospikes on the surface.

Terri Camesano, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Dean of Graduate Studies, received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. Sara Olson, a WPI faculty in Mathematical Sciences, was also awarded. Congratulations to both professors! Read more here.

Department of Chemical Engineering Professor Sue Roberts, Department Head, was recently highlighted in the Worcester Telegram! The new genetic engineering technique developed by her research group could improve plant cell based production of the important anticancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol). For more, see the WPI News article associated with the research.

Professor Deskins, in collaboration with WPI Mechanical Engineering Professor Pratap Rao, received NSF funding for  “Engineering Charge Transport through Directed Orientation of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Catalysts." This work will increase the efficiency of catalysts for the production and utilization of carbon-free or carbon-neutral fuels via electrical-to-chemical and solar-to-chemical processes.

Professor Deskins, in collaboration with Professor Xiaowei Teng at the University of New Hampshire, also received funding for “Hydrogen Production via Highly Efficient Electrochemical Reforming of Ethanol in a Proton Exchange Membrane Cell.” This work will lead to efficient, cleaner methods to produce hydrogen, a valuable fuel and chemical feedstock.

Separation membranes hold the key to making hydrogen fuel cheaper; in a pioneering study, the researchers show that membranes made with liquid metals appear to be more efficient at separating hydrogen than conventional palladium membranes while also being less expensive and more durable. Read more here!

Chemical Engineering Professor David DiBiasio and colleagues at WPI with sponsorship from the KERN Foundation are leading efforts to introduce entrepreneurial training into WPI’s STEM curricula and project based learning.

WPI’s superstar researchers Lindsay Lozeau and Todd Alexander never pictured themselves as cofounders of a company that is poised to change the way the medical community considers stopping infections. Yet here they are.

Their company, AMProtection, has gone through a few changes and pivots to arrive at this point—starting down the road to bring to market a urinary catheter with antimicrobial peptides that will reduce infections without increasing antibiotic resistance. Eventually such a device could save patients the painful and sometimes lethal infections that can happen from catheters.

WPI Chemical Engineering major Celeste Marsan '19, who recently completed an Amgen scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley, was recently featured in WPI Insider! Check out the full article here.