(2mk) Electrochemistry Nano Laboratory (Echem NanoLab): Wearable sensing platforms for continuous health monitoring

Farnaz Lorestani is the Research Associate Postdoctoral Researcher, at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University (PSU). She joined Penn State University starting August 2021 from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where she was a Postdoctoral Researcher. Before that, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as an associate researcher at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), and group leader at Professor Ali Khademhosseini’s lab. Her interdisciplinary interest is in developing biosensing and wearable platforms that utilize micro- and nanoscale technologies to enable a range of diagnostic and therapeutic systems for healthcare applications. Her current research focuses on designing and developing new non-invasive wearable and skin-like sweat-sensing platforms for continuous monitoring of the metabolite in body fluids. In addition, the integration of micro and nanoengineered conductive materials with flexible biocompatible stretchable materials offers innovative options for designing more stable, sensitive, selective, and low-cost, sensing platforms and therapeutic devices. Dr. Lorestani’s research has been featured in more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, editorials, and review papers, (>1200 citations, h-index = 13, i10-index = 15).

Research Interests

Rapid diagnosis and continuous monitoring of diseases play a pivotal role in enhancing clinical outcomes and advancing public health. Timely identification of diseases enables swift intervention and treatment, resulting in better patient prognosis and reduced transmission rates. Moreover, continuous monitoring offers dynamic insights into disease progression, allowing for personalized and responsive therapeutic adjustments. In this context, flexible and wearable biosensors have emerged as efficient tools. These biosensors combine the advantages of portability, real-time monitoring, and non-invasive data collection. Despite the great potential, noninvasive-sensing devices still face challenges in real-time sweat sampling and need a highly sensitive, selective, and long-term stable sensing platform that could work close to their limit of detection because of the low concentrations of the biomarkers in sweat. Besides, the biosensor read-out is often affected by variations in the sweat pH, salinity, temperature, and other physiochemical factors. At Echem NanoLab, we will endeavor to interdisciplinary solutions by utilizing micro- and nanoscale technologies to overcome non-invasive wearable common challenges. Our research will focus on the design, fabrication, and application of flexible and stretchable device platforms to enable a range of diagnostic and therapeutic systems for healthcare applications. The low-cost, highly sensitive, and long-term stable designed platforms could facilitate and pave the way for the early identification and continuous monitoring of different biomarkers for non-invasive disease diagnosis and treatment evaluation.

Teaching Interests:

In addition to research, I would be excited to teach courses across the curriculum of Materials Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering, as well as advanced course subjects in the fields of nanobiotechnology, surface engineering, electrochemistry, and analytical chemistry. I am also interested in developing new courses that add to the current curriculum. In obedience to my research goals for building a Multidisciplinary lab, I would like to develop some multidisciplinary subjects, which combine the fundamentals of chemistry, nanomaterial and nanoengineering science, and electrochemistry with technology and healthcare issues.

Peer-reviewed publications (total >22 papers, H-index =13, >1,200 citations).

Three selected Publications

1. Farnaz Lorestani, Xianzhe Zhang, Abu Musa Abdullah, Xin Xin, Yushen Liu, MD Mashfiqur Rahman, Md Abu Sayeed Biswas, Bowen Li, Ankan Duta, Zhenyuan Niu, Shuvendu Das, Shishir Barai, Huanyu Cheng. A highly sensitive and long-term stable wearable patch for continuous analysis of biomarkers in sweat. (Accepted at Advance Functional Materials (2023))

2. Cheng Zhang, Huamin Chen, Xiaohong Ding, Farnaz Lorestani, Chunlei Huang, Bingwen Zhang, Biao Zheng, Jun Wang, Huanyu Cheng, Yun Xu. Human motion-driven self-powered stretchable sensing platform based on laser-induced graphene foams. Applied Physics Review (2022).

3. Farnaz Lorestani, Zohreh Shahnavaz, Poori Moozarmnia, Yatimah Alias, & Ninie Manan. One-step hydrothermal green synthesis of silver nanoparticle-carbon nanotube reduced-graphene oxide composite and its application as hydrogen peroxide sensor. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical (2015).