SensNews Aug 2020

Sensor100 August 2020 22 Highly sensitive dopamine detector uses 2D materials A supersensitive dopamine detector can help in the early diagnosis of sev- eral disorders that result in too much or too little dopamine, according to a group led by Penn State and including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and universities in China and Japan. Dopamine is an important neu- rotransmitter that can be used to diagnose disorders such as Parkin- son’s disease,Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. “If you can develop a very sensitive, yet simple-to-use and portable, detector that can identify a wide range of dopamine concentration, for instance in sweat, that could help in non-invasive monitoring of an individual’s health,” said Aida Ebrahimi, assistant professor of electrical engineering, Penn State, and a corresponding author on a paper published Aug. 7 in Science Advances. Their work shows that by adding a small amount of manganese to a two-dimensional layered material called molybdenum disulfide, they can improve the sensitivity by many orders of magnitude compared to other reported results, while also achieving high specificity. Importantly, their detector is low-cost and flexible, and can detect dopa- mine in background media including buffer, serum and sweat, and in real-time. News Penn State University 7 August Sensus 2020 took place on 28th August The contest of SensUs 2020 Here you will be able to view the data re- corded during the Event of SensUs 2020, on the 28th of August. https://digital.sensus.org/