The Department is pleased to congratulate Dr. Leyla Soleymani who has just been awarded the Douglas R. Colton Medal for Research Excellence. This award is given for research leading to new understanding and novel developments in microsystems and related technologies. She accepted the award at a ceremony in Ottawa in October.

Leyla Soleymani received the B.Eng. degree from McGill University, the M.Sc. degree from University of Southern California, and the Ph.D. degree from University of Toronto. Throughout her research career, Soleymani has taken a multi-disciplinary approach in combining innovations in physics, electrical engineering, materials science, and biochemistry for solving problems in healthcare. She is currently an assistant professor at McMaster University, with research interests in areas of biosensing and nanofabrication. More specifically, she is interested developing in-vivo and in-vitro diagnostic platforms for early disease detection, modeling nano- and micro-scale sensors, fabricating hierarchical and hybrid materials using chemical deposition methods with nanometer resolution, and studying materials growth using in-situ techniques.

Research Interests

Development of fully integrated cellular sensors

The advances in genomics and proteomics have led to the identification of pathogen and disease biomarkers. We are interested in bringing these advances to the patient’s bedside through the development of point-of-care diagnostic platforms. The work in our laboratory is focused on the design and fabrication of fully integrated cellular sensors for point-of-care applications. These devices integrate sample purification, cellular lysis and genetic analysis on a single microchip for diagnosis of cancers and infectious diseases.

Integration of nanomaterials into microsystems

We are developing new methods for combining top-down microfabrication techniques used in microelectronics with bottom-up nanofabrication techniques including electrodeposition, electroless deposition and self-assembly to construct highly controllable hierarchical materials. Particularly, we integrate and pattern nanostructured polymeric and metallic materials within silicon technology for biosensing, photovoltaic, and fuel cell applications.

Biosensor modeling

We are involved in the development and implementation of finite element methods (FEM) for models involving diffusion of biomolecules and their capture by three-dimensional sensors and transducers. We are using these models to develop and optimize biosensing platforms with size, sensitivity and speed suitable for clinical applications.

Recent Publications

L. Soleymani, Z. Fang, B. Lam, X. Bin, E. Vasilyeva, A. J. Ross, E. H. Sargent and S. O. Kelley, “Hierarchical Nanotextured Microelectroes Overcome the Molecular Transport Barrier to Achieve Rapid, Direct Bacterial Detection”, ACS Nano, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 3360-3366, 2011.

L. Soleymani, Z. Fang, E. H. Sargent and S. O. Kelley, “Programming nucleic acids detection sensitivity using controlled nanostructuring”, Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 4, No. 12, pp. 844-848, 2009.

L. Soleymani, Z. Fang, X. Sun, H. Yang, B.J. Taft, E. H. Sargent and S. O. Kelley, “Nanostructuring of patterned microelectrodes enhances the sensitivity of electrochemical nucleic acids detection”, Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 48, No. 45, pp. 8457-8460, 2009.

L. Soleymani, Z. Fang, E. H. Sargent and S. O. Kelley, “Integrated nanostructures for direct detection of DNA at attomolar concentrations”, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 95, No. 14, pp. 143701-143704, 2009.

Z. Fang, L. Soleymani, G. Pampalakis, M. Yoshimoto, J. Squire, B.J. Taft, E. H. Sargent and S. O. Kelley, "Direct profiling of cancer biomarkers in tumor tissue using a multiplexed nanostructured microelectrode integrated circuit", ACS Nano, Vol. 3, No. 10, pp. 3207-3213, 2009.

H. Yang, A. Hui, G. Pampalakis, L. Soleymani, F. Liu, S. O. Kelley, “Direct, Electronic MicroRNA Detection for the Rapid Determination of Differential Expression Profiles”, Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 48, No. 45, pp.8461-8464, 2009.
Featured in Nature Research Highlights, Vol 461, 22 October 2009.

2012 McMaster University

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