Developing Next-Generation Technologies to Predict Future Pandemics
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic ignited a more urgent need for disease surveillance tools at the community level. These tools are expected to provide rapid assessments of outbreaks within actionable time frames to support public health mitigation efforts. Prof Dipanjan believes that a rapidly deployable approach is essential to develop next-generation technologies for screening COVID-19 and any future disease outbreaks. His research primarily focuses on developing sensing platforms to assess the load of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in sewage networks and interpret disease prevalence in various communities. Leveraging new partnerships between US and UK engineers and collaborations with departments of public works and public health, Prof Dipanjan is strategically helping to build inclusive economies and sustainable, healthy societies by addressing the unmet need to develop tools to predict and mitigate future pandemics.
A Career in Nanomedicine
Prof Dipanjan is a Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Huck Chair Professor in Nanomedicine at Pennsylvania State University, USA. He serves as an associate editor for WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology and has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in journals, books and conference proceedings with significant contributions to the nanomedicine field including seminal studies in imaging, drug delivery and biosensing.
Prof Dipanjan is a founder/co-founder of five start-up companies, including Vitruvian Bio, which is funded by the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and has licensed Prof Dipanjan’s biosensing technology to develop biosensors for HIV. Prof Dipanjan is on the editorial board of Precision Nanomedicine (PRNANO). He is a senior member of the National Academy of Innovators (NAI) and an elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Biology, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Cardiology. Prof Dipanjan’s recent discovery of
COVID-19 biosensing work is currently supported by the United States National Institute of Health.
A Sensing Platform for Rapid Detection of Pathogens in Water Bodies
Prof Dipanjan’s DIA-supported project aims to provide rapid assessments of pathogens in still water bodies to predict and mitigate future outbreaks. The project involves determining strategic points of sewage sample collection (from pumping stations and wastewater treatment plants), and testing and correlating the sewage samples with a spatial incidence of disease at the time of sample collection.
“Participating in the DIA programme enables me to establish a global network of investigators for developing technology for next-generation pandemic prediction.”
Collaborating with industrial bioelectrochemist Dr Martin Peacock, Prof Dipanjan is developing a powerful sensing platform based on 2D materials of borophene for rapid, quantitative and selective detection of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens present in still water bodies. Introducing a point-of-sampling (POS) detection technique with a short sensing period, Prof Dipanjan believes that future outbreaks can be easily detected without the need for any advanced instrumental techniques, modern laboratory infrastructural facilities or the involvement of experienced researchers.
Teaming Experts for a Sustainable Future
Prof Dipanjan believes that building a global network of interdisciplinary professionals with expertise in biomedical and environmental engineering, environmental microbiology, epidemiology and public utility can help to address time-critical and challenging public health and sustainability issues. Leveraging networking capabilities offered by the Royal Academy of Engineering, he is working on uniting academic researchers with industry experts to actively engage in designing and implementing his DIA-supported project. His goal is to potentially develop an innovative, yet rapidly deployable approach for performing wastewater-based epidemiology that is adaptable for not just screening new strains of COVID-19 but also detecting any future disease outbreaks.