AixSense Student Team Succeeds in International SensUs Competition

The AixSense student team has developed a prototype biosensor to detect acute respiratory viruses. 

 

RWTH students Jiayi He, Daniyar Kizatov, Anshul Prashar, and Shunjiro Sode participated in the 2021 edition of the SensUs student competition as “Team Aixsense” and won second place for the strong analytical capabilities of their sensor. SensUS is supported by the European Institute of Technology Health and has been hosted annually by Eindhoven University of Technology since 2016. The competition's objective is to develop innovative biosensing systems for the treatment of medical problems.

The competition invites students to develop biosensors to solve specific medical problems; in the past, the focus has been on biomarkers for kidney failure, heart failure, antibiotic resistance, rheumatism, and epilepsy. This year, 14 student teams from around the world spent six months on developing biosensing systems capable of detecting the influenza A virus in saliva samples.

As in the past year, the Aachen team was supported by Professor Sven Ingebrandt and Dr. Vivek Pachauri from the Institute of Materials in Electrical Engineering 1. The students had access to the institute's laboratories and cleanroom facilities. The key component of the students’ solution are microchips that are able to electronically detect the relevant biomarkers.

Team leader Daniyar Kizatov, a Master’s student in electrical engineering, information technology and computer engineering, explains: "The Aachen team has never been so close to winning the most important category of the competition. It was very close and we are proud of our achievement."

Next year, the focus will be on the detection of cytokines, which are proteins that play a fundamental role in the immune system.