Ahmed Hamid
Auburn University, AL·Chemistry
Diagnosing diseases often relies on tests that are slow, expensive or labor-intensive. That limits their use in resource-limited regions and can delay treatment.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
ion mobility
Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations
collision cross section
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Identify molecular biomarkers associated with foodborne diseases and Alzheimer's disease that can be detected in clinical samples by high-resolution ion mobility separation.
- Build and validate an ion mobility device that couples traveling wave SLIM separations with drift tube SLIM, so it can measure collision cross sections (a size-and-shape value) of separated isomers and conformers to identify biomarkers more accurately.
- Combine high-resolution ion mobility with ambient ionization, which charges molecules directly from the sample, to detect biomarkers sensitively in complex clinical samples without prior sample preparation.
- Develop the instrument into a portable, affordable, high-throughput point-of-care diagnostic that nurses and their assistants could run, including in resource-limited regions.
More about the research
This project aims to build a portable instrument that quickly detects biomarkers, molecules whose presence signals a disease, directly in clinical samples. The goal is a device simple enough for nurses and their assistants to run. The project targets foodborne diseases and Alzheimer's disease, which affect millions of people. Faster diagnosis, the project argues, could raise recovery rates, shorten hospital stays and reduce antibiotic resistance.
Why it matters
Current diagnostic methods for foodborne illnesses and Alzheimer's disease can be slow, costly or labor-intensive, which limits their use in resource-limited regions. A portable, affordable ion mobility device that less-skilled staff such as nurses could operate may allow faster, high-throughput diagnosis. The project expects that faster diagnosis could improve recovery rates, shorten hospital stays and reduce antibiotic resistance.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Carlos Larriba Andaluz
Purdue University, IN·Chemistry
Develop higher-order ion mobility approximations using two-temperature theory, then add ion energy calculations and inelastic collision effects to explain how ion mobility spectrometry separates isomers.
Ruixuan Gao
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Chemistry·Early-career
Develop a tissue polymerization and expansion pipeline that anchors natural lipids to a swellable polymer gel, allowing MALDI mass spectrometry imaging of lipids at subcellular resolution on conventional instruments.
Francisco Fernandez-Lima
Florida International University, FL·Chemistry
Develop mass spectrometry workflows that combine solution labeling, trapped ion mobility spectrometry (which separates ions by shape) and electron- or UV-based fragmentation to study biomolecular complexes near their native state.
The school
Auburn University: 11 labs on PI Pages, $394M a year on research, 327 research doctorates a year.
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