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PhD Student: Alejandro Astúa Rosales

Director: Dr M. Carmen Estevez, Tenured Scientist in the NanoBiosensors and Bioanalytical Applications Group at ICN2, CSIC. 

Short Abstract: Diagnosis and assessment of treatment effectiveness for bacterial infections include practices such as identifying pathogens, determining their susceptibility pattern or resistance to antibiotics, and monitoring therapies for certain antibiotics and patient groups. However, current methods applied by healthcare specialists generally lack providing a rapid determination of the bacteria and the possibility to monitor an antibiotic in a short- to real-time detection scheme using preferably untreated samples taken at the point-of-care place. This PhD thesis addresses the implementation of innovative and versatile optical label-free biosensors for the management of infectious diseases from different perspectives that include the identification of bacteria to provide a more efficient diagnosis and treatment, and the rapid quantification and monitoring of levels of antibiotics with narrow therapeutic ranges.