GW4 Biosensor Network
University of Bath: Pedro Estrela (PI)
University of Bristol: Mervyn Miles
Cardiff University: Niklaas Buurma
University of Exeter: Peter Winlove
Background
The GW4 Biosensor Network will bring together researchers from different disciplines with an interest on biosensors. Biosensors measure chemical or biological molecules in complex samples (e.g. blood, water, air) for a wide range of applications including medical diagnosis, monitoring of therapies, personalised medicine, drug discovery and water quality control.
Inherently, biosensor research is highly interdisciplinary with integration of knowledge between engineers, physical scientists, life scientists, clinicians and other end users to accelerate innovations that are informed and fit for purpose.
We aim to push forward biosensor research with biomedical, pharmaceutical, environmental monitoring and defence applications. Through collaboration, cooperation and integration there is an opportunity to make improvements in our level of commercial and clinical interaction, the quality of published outputs, and funding success rates.
Project summary
The funding helped to develop and formalise the GW4 Biosensor Network, comprising academics from engineering, physical sciences, life & clinical sciences. The network held a launch workshop to provide a way of disseminating across the GW4 biosensor community the research being done by the different groups, establish links and an opportunity for networking. Following this, a sandpit event allowed the community to develop grant applications, including a successful Accelerator application for the project: Towards a rapid, hand-held, biosensor-based detector for Clostridium difficile.
