Elisabete Fernandes

 

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Elisabete Fernandes

Staff Researcher
Nanodevices

Elisabete Fernandes is a Staff Researcher in the Nanodevices Group at the Nanoelectronics Engineering Department. Her research interests include the development of monoplex and multiplex assay formats, surfaces functionalization, the applicability of magnetoresistive platforms to the multiplex detection of medical biomarkers, and on the clinical validation protocols using biosensors.
Elisabete holds a PhD degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Minho, Portugal. She started to be involved in the Biosensing field during her PhD targeted on the detection of Salmonella using a Phage-based Biosensor. During this time, the multidisciplinary work was developed between the University of Minho and the University of Auburn (USA), the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory – INL. After the PhD, she obtained an ITN Marie Curie Fellowship under the European project: PROSENSE “Cancer Diagnosis: Parallel Sensing of Prostate Cancer Biomarkers”. As a post-doctoral researcher she worked at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in the development of a Microfluidic device for blood plasma separation, and at Xeptagen S.p.A in the development of a pre-commercial portable medical analysis system for early cancer detection.

Elisabete major skills are related to (1) the use of different types of biomarkers for biosensor approaches, like microvesicles, antibodies, phage, and inflammatory protein markers; (2) functionalization of gold and graphene surfaces, and cellulose membranes; (3) functionalization of nanoparticles: bifunctional linkers and bioconjugation on gold, polystyrene, and magnetic nanoparticles; (3) use of magnetoresistive platforms (based on spin-valve sensors), magnetoelastic sensors, and lateral-flow-assays, and (4) technical skills in biotechnology. Besides that, Elisabete is a multidisciplinary researcher with participation in pedagogical projects (national and international), a National Geographic Certified Educator, and the leader of a volunteer project related to scientific literacy at INL (Mission NERD).

Selected Publications

  • Elisabete Fernandes, Patrícia D. Cabral, Rui Campos, George Machado Jr., M. Fátima Cerqueira, Cláudia Sousa, Paulo P. Freitas, Jérôme Borme, Dmitri Y. Petrovykh, Pedro Alpuim
    Functionalization of single-layer graphene for immunoassays
    Applied Surface Science, 480, 709-716 (2019)
  • Teresa G. Barroso, Rui C. Martins, Elisabete Fernandes, Susana Cardoso, José Rivas, Paulo P. Freitas
    Detection of BCG bacteria using a magnetoresistive biosensor: A step towards a fully electronic platform for tuberculosis point-of-care detection
    Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 100, 259–265 (2018)
  • P.P.Freitas, F.A.Cardoso, V.Martins, E.Fernandes, T.Sobrino, J.Castillo, A.Chicharo, M.Martins, C. Costa, R.Lopez, T.S.Dias, J.Germano, S.Cardoso, M.S.Piedade.
    Spintronic biochips: from the laboratory to pre-clinical applications
    Chapter 9, page 165-196 in: Nanomagnetism: Applications and Perspectives, First Edition.
    Edited by Claude Fermon and Marcel Van de Voorde. Published 2017 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.KGaA. ISBN: 978-3-527-33985