Author: Judith Su

Taste Receptor Paper Published

Our last work on taste receptors with Bill Goddard’s group at Caltech, Cargill, Cube Biotech, and the Université de Bourgogne-Franche Compté has been published in Communications Chemistry.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42004-024-01324-x

These studies can guide rational design of novel non-caloric sweeteners aimed at enabling lower sugar usage levels while retaining the sweet taste. This may provide the basis for novel therapeutic applications for treatment of obesity and related metabolic dysfunctions such as diabetes.

We thank the NIH and Cargill, Inc for financial support.

npj Biosensing paper

I am happy to share our first paper on the early diagnosis and screening of Alzheimer’s disease.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44328-024-00009-8

In this study, we utilize the ultra-sensitivity of FLOWER (frequency-locked optical whispering evanescent resonator) to quantify levels of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarker Aβ42 in post-mortem cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from control, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD participants. We demonstrate FLOWER’s capability to effectively screen CSF samples for AD diagnosis. Measuring Aβ levels can facilitate early AD diagnosis and support drug studies and efforts to delay dementia. FLOWER was able to distinguish healthy cognitively unimpaired participants from those with MCI and AD, marking an important advancement in early diagnosis.

We would like to thank an NIGMS R35 grant, an NIA NIH R03 grant, and the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium for their generous support, which made this investigation possible.

Light: Science & Applications paper

Our work on combining microtoroid optical resonators with photothermal microscopy to detect single 5 nm quantum dots with a signal-to-noise ratio > 10^4 without the use of labels has been published in Light: Science & Applications. We thank an NIGMS R35 grant and the Gordon & Betty Moore foundation for support. We anticipate our work will have applications in a variety of fields including the biological sciences, nanotechnology, materials science, chemistry, and medicine.

Single 5-nm quantum dot detection via microtoroid optical resonator photothermal microscopy | Light: Science & Applications (nature.com)

Congratulations Dr. Gin!

Congratulations to the newest PhD in our lab! Dr. Adley Gin successfully defended his thesis, “Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Studying Kappa Opioid Receptors Using Whispering Gallery Mode Microtoroid Biosensors” on April 4th. This work was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging, and the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium.

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