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Seyedeh "Maral" Mousavi has been selected as one of four winners of the competitive Eastern Analytical Symposium Graduate Student Research Awards. She will present her research at a poster session at the EAS Symposium and Exhibition, November 17-19, in Somerset, NJ.
Maral will present her work on reducing sample volume required for detection with fluorous-phase ion-selective electrodes. Ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) are electrochemical sensors that determine the concentration of a wide range of ions; however, interference of biological molecules limits their application in biological analyses. The low hydrophobicity of fluorous compounds (molecules with high content of fluorine atoms) was exploited to develop fluorous-phase ISEs, which have higher selectivity and increased resistance towards interference of biological molecules. Yet, large sample volumes needed for fluorous-phase ISE measurements makes them inapplicable to many biological samples; e.g., samples containing enzymes and antibodies. Maral will present different strategies for reducing the sample volume required for measurement with fluorous-phase ISEs. The strategies include development of miniaturized reference electrodes, development of fluorous-phase ion-selective microelectrodes, and development of experimental platforms that, instead of the conventional method of immersing the ISE and the reference electrode in a sample solution (50-100 ml), confine the sample in between the reference electrode and ISE, resulting in a thin layer of sample solution to perform the measurement.
Maral is a fifth-year graduate student in Professor Philippe Buhlmann's group.