Recently, Ph.D. student Birui Jin from BEBC has published his first author review in Biosensors and Bioelectronics entitled "Upconversion nanoparticles based FRET aptasensor for rapid and ultrasenstive bacteria detection". 

They developed a novel detection platform based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) for rapid, ultrasensitive and specific bacteria detection. Using the UCNPs based FRET aptasensor, they successfully detected Escherichia coli ATCC 8739 (as a model analyte) with a detection range of 5–10⁶ cfu/mL and detection limit of 3 cfu/mL. The aptasensor was further used to detect E. coli in real food and water samples (e.g., tap/pond water, milk) within 20 min. The novel UCNPs based FRET aptasensor could be used to detect a broad range of targets from whole cells to metal ions by using different aptamer sequences, holding great potential in environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics and food safety analysis.

The work is under the guidance of Feng Xu and Professor Min Lin. The co-authors of the paper include Shurui Wang, Min Lin, Ying Jin, Shujing Zhang, Xingye Cui, Yan Gong, Ang Li, Feng Xu, Tian Jian Lu.

Links: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956566316310454