Dr. Agarwal receives 3-year funding for research

Congratulations to Dr. Gunjan Agarwal for her research grant of $300,000 to be awarded over the next three years! Her research on "indirect MFM for sensing magnetic nanoparticles" will be funded by the Biosensing division of the National Science Foundation- Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems. Dr. Agarwal will collaborate with Dr. John Moreland at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, CO. 

Below is a description of Dr. Agarwal's research:

The overall goal of this proposal is to develop a novel biosensing modality, namely, InDirect Magnetic Force Microscopy (ID-MFM), to detect nanoscale magnetic particles. ID-MFM is expected to offer very high sensitivity and spatial resolution beyond the capabilities of existing biosensors and imaging modalities. This unique approach can be used to determine magnetic (iron) content in small quantities of samples and is expected to find a wide variety of applications in evaluating biological fluids, cells and tissue sections. The iron-encapsulating protein, ferritin, will be studied as a model magnetic nanoparticle because of its versatile applications in biomedicine and bio-nanotechnology. ID-MFM will be developed to detect ferritin in-vitro, in ambient air and in a fluid environment. The proposed efforts also include a multi-level enrichment plan in nanotechnology for K-8 students, undergraduates and graduate students through a hands-on workshop, research experience and inter-institutional (NIST) collaboration.