The Locke Biosensing Lab is a part of the Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center. We aim to develop novel optical biosensing platforms to address current clinical diagnostic challenges at the point-of-care. We explore the use of various nanoplasmonic structures incorporated paper- or micro-fluidic platforms to create rapid diagnostic tools that are simplistic and user-friendly.
Research Focus Areas:
1) The design and synthesis of novel bioassays for sensing of bioanalytes within complex biological fluids
2) The development and application of various portable Biophotonics-based spectroscopic tools for point-of-care sensing: surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, Fluorescence spectroscopy, colorimetry, etc.
3) The design of low-cost, fluidic platform: paperfluidic, microfluidics, 3D printing, microencapsulation
For more information, please email andrea.locke@vanderbilt.edu
Congratulations, Kate Goncalves, for winning the James Manner Poster Award at Pittcon 2025! Kate attended her first conference and presented her work on the “Analysis of Vaginal Fluid using Raman Spectroscopy.” Her work focuses on identifying differences in vaginal microbiome pertaining to race and ethnicity, pre-and-post menopause, sexual activity, and contraceptive use. Kate is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
