Dr Guido Bolognesi, Lecturer in Bioengineering in the Chemical Engineering Department at Loughborough University, has secured an EPSRC New Investigator Award (£240k FEC) and will support a 3-year research project focusing on the development of new particle manipulation strategies for bio-analysis in microfluidic devices.  

Rapid filtration, trapping and accumulation of colloidal particles will be achieved by harvesting the chemical energy associated with multicomponent flows. This research will also demonstrate the proof-of-concept for using this particle manipulation technique to develop fast and sensitive diagnostic testing devices.

This project builds on a previous EPSRC-funded proof-of-concept study (£25k FEC) on microfluidic bioparticle manipulation for ultrasensitive and rapid diagnostics led by Dr Bolognesi in 2017. This seed-funded project was funded through a ‘Bridging the Gap’ Award (EP/M027341/1), led by Dr Danish Malik and focused on tackling antimicrobial resistance. 

This research will be undertaken in collaboration with Dr Goran Vladisavljevic, who is the co-supervisor of the PhD student (Mr Naval Singh) associated with this project. The project will be developed in partnership with the Light and Matter Institute of University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France).

Dr Bolognesi stated:

 “This is an ambitious and challenging research programme and I am very excited to undertake it and lead it. I just can’t wait to start!”