Orange Alert

Professor Liviu Movileanu develops biosensors to identify proteins in leukemia, cancer

Posted on: Sept. 6, 2018

A physicist in the College of Arts and Sciences is using a major grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support ongoing research into protein detection.

Liviu Movileanu, professor of physics, is the recipient of a four-year, $1.2 million Research Project Grant (R01) from NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The award supports the development of highly sensitive biosensors to identify proteins in aggressive lymphocytic leukemia and various cancers.

The project involves researchers from Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University, the latter of whom are led by Michael Cosgrove G’93, G’98, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

“Our mission is to design, create and optimize novel biophysical tools that detect tiny amounts of biological molecules," says Movileanu, a member of the Biophysics and Biomaterials research group in the Department of Physics. "We will devise protein-based detectors that benefit molecular biomedical diagnostics." More details