VCURES Investigators Present at NIH BECON 2002 Symposium on Sensors for Biologic Research and Medicine:

The National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Consortium recently sponsored BECON 2002 (http://www.masimax.com/becon2002/index.cfm). This symposium focuses on the latest advances and challenges in biomedical sensors and is attended by a wide range of biomedical researchers, clinicians, and investigators from engineering, physical, and computational sciences. Two senior VCURES investigators were selected to participate in this conference. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, ScD, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Emergency Medicine and Director of VCU's Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors, and Biochips (C3B) (http://www.egr.vcu.edu/biochips/index.html) was a selected as a panelist for one of the symposium's breakout sessions entitled Advanced Technologies for Biologic and Biomedical Research This session dealt with the application of emerging technologies (biochips, microarrays, microfluidics, molecular probes, and contrast agents) to the development of various systems which could operated autonomously and non-invasively. .

James Terner, PhD, Professor of Chemistry was chosen to present a poster on some of the cutting edge research VCURES is conducting with the use of special spectroscopy techniques to monitor tissue oxygenation. The title of the poster was: "Noninvasive Tissue Oxygen Saturation Monitoring Using Resonance Raman
Spectroscopy (RRS)". The poster was well received and generated significant discussion among attendees.

VCURES and C3B are actively researching several additional biosensing strategies for shock related injuries and illnesses. For more information please contact Dr. Kevin Ward: krward@hsc.vcu.edu.