Julaunica Tigner

E-mail: Tuskegee University
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Advisor: Tamara Floyd-Smith

Biography

julaunica

A Carbon NanoFiber Sensor with Integrated Microfluidics for Detection of Glucose and Interleukin 6

A carbon nanofiber array (CNF) sensor with electrochemical detection is proposed for the detection of both glucose and Interleukin 6 (IL-6), an important biomarker in immune response. The CNFs are vertically aligned with a range in diameter from 25 to 100 nm and a range in height from hundreds of nanometers to one micrometer. These CNFs are grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The CNFs have a bamboo-like structure with active sites at the open ends of the CNFs and along the shaft of the CNFs. Biological agents such enzymes and antibodies can be attached to these active sites using surface chemistry. For detection of glucose, the enzyme, glucose oxidase, is proposed to catalyze the oxidation of glucose to produce hydrogen peroxide which can be detected using electrochemistry. For the detection of IL-6, antibody-antigen binding followed by electrochemical transduction is proposed. By the completion of this project, we anticipate developing (1) a glucose sensor that can be used as a tool to deploy nanomedicine to K-12 classrooms and (2) an optimized IL-6 sensor with potential commercial applications