About Our Laboratory
Spotlight On Lab Members
- Alice Kwan receives AAUW graduate student fellowship award.
- Arunima Panigrahy and Eric Ranstrom were recently selected to participate in the Sandia National Laboratory 2011 summer internship program.
- Michael Schivo is succesfully completing the MCRTP training program in June 2011, earning a Masters of Advanced Study (MAS) degree in Clinical Research.
- Prof. Davis was recently selected as a Hartwell Investigator, and awarded a 2010 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award from The Harwell Foundation. This was one of 12 awards made nationally.
June 2012 group photo (left to right): (back row) Felicia Seichter, Alexander Fung, Yuriy Zrodnikov, Dr. Alberto Pasamontes, Dr. Michael Schivo, Joachim Pedersen, Daniel Peirano, Konstantin Zamuruyev, Dr. Alexander Aksenov; (front row) Alice Kwan, Dr. William Cheung, Arunima Panigrahy, Prof. Cristina Davis. [not pictured: Micha Gresshoff, Virginia Hartz, Alice Rystov]
Our research group's work focuses on cutting edge research on the design and implementation of analytical sensors -- especially chemical sensors. We occupy ~1,000 ft2 of dedicated laboratory space on the main University of California, Davis campus.
There exists an urgent need for sensors that can rapidly, accurately, and specifically detect extremely small concentrations of chemical and biological materials. Such technologies can make an impact on everything from public health to national defense.
Along with researchers in industry, our group is developing new sensor systems suitable for rapid diagnosis of various pulmonary diseases. Similarly, we are also applying variations on this technology for the early detection of chemical and biological agents. By drawing parallels in chemical/metabolite detection for clinical and defense applications, we can now develop "dual-use" sensors that are less expensive to bring through the development pipeline and can be applied to a wide spectrum of problems.
This core thrust in our research requires a multidisciplinary effort between biology, chemistry, mathematics, mechanical, and electrical engineering.
A broad range of research topics are being pursued by our lab members, including:
- non-invasive clinical diagnostic tools
- sensor system development for precision agriculture
- novel microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices
- nanotechnology manufacturing methods
- biodefense applications
- new materials for MEMS/NEMS applications
- mechanical and bioinstrumentation design
- bioinformatics and machine learning approaches for data analysis