Jonas Perez has received an Honorable Mention for his “outstanding work in precious metal research as a student” in the 2008 International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) Student Award competition. The International Precious Metals Institute awards its annual prize and three honorable mentions to students based on: (1) Breadth of scientific disciplines/techniques involved in establishing unequivocal proof of experimental results. (2) Expands the potential for precious metal applications. That is, as a result of the subject work, the probability of industry to use or recover more precious metals is increased. (3) Unique nature of the work and innovation. Is the research novel with potentially significant new science being discovered, or is it building on existing scientific findings (speaks to the difficulty of the research project). (4) Precious metal chemistry, applications, etc is the focus of the work, not just coincidental to it.
Jonas’ research project demonstrates the use of antibody- and nucleic acid-based detection of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). The antibody-based method utilizes gold nanoparticles to deliver DNA tags which have been designed to facilitate a logical NOT operation. This use of “DNA Logic” lowers the effects of non-specific binding in turn increasing the specificity of the assay. The nucleic acid-based method is designed with molecular beacon style capture DNA attached to a gold filament. The filament not only gives spatial control of capture DNA, allowing for multiplexed detection of targets, but also acts as a quencher while the beacon is in a dark state.
Last Updated: April 21, 2008 |
