Author: SSSIHL

The STAR Lab, SSSIHL, has published a new paper in ACS Applied Nano Materials that demonstrates the use of a novel biopolymer, soluplus-mediated plasmonic nanohybrids for mobile phone-based biosensing applications. This judicious synergy of materials at nanoregime are utilized to revisit and overcome the perpetual problem of Ohmic lossy quenching in metals, thereby demonstrating excellent performance in sensing analytes of interest.

Identifying the Issue

• Sensors are widely used in industrial processes, public health control, homeland security, forensics, environmental health monitoring.
• Photonic nanomaterials made of metallized nanoparticles are globally used for sensor technology development. However, their true potential is plagued by inevitable intrinsic Ohmic losses, that hinder the performance of any sensing platform.
• Therefore, there is a constant need for hybrid material green technologies for global market sensor industries, using nanochemistry-based biocompatible methods.

Objective of the Research

• Identifying fundamental reasons which lead to interband Ohmic losses in terms of basic chemistry and biophysics of nanomaterials.
• Finding an economically viable green technology solution to minimize/prevent the Ohmic losses and improve the performance of plasmonic materials, which in turn translates into superior efficiencies for the industries offering solutions based on sensing technologies.
• Improving the overall sensitivity and specificity of sensor materials in comparison with cost-intensive and hazardous nano-sensor techniques.

Who should read this?
Anyone in industry, working directly or indirectly on sensor development or sensing-related technologies including, security, surveillance, monitoring, environmental safety monitoring, medical technologies, and disease diagnostics. Further, this article will be extremely useful to researchers currently faced with the problem of ‘Losses in plasmonic nanomaterials.

AgAu NanoHyrbid Engineering – A burgeoning practical solution for the problems in biosensors

• The eco-friendly and biocompatible methodologies for diverse applications in nanophotonics and biomedical domains are discussed in this work.
• Soluplus is a graft copolymer of polyvinyl caprolactam – polyvinyl acetate – polyethylene glycol. Although extensively used for improving the solubility and bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs, amphiphilic chemical bi-functional properties have so far not been explored for green nanosynthesis.
• The three main long-lasting challenges in plasmonic technology development have been addressed experimentally and theoretically in this research work. The proposed hybrid materials overcome the following caveats: (i) inescapable quenching in the presence of AuNPs, (ii) chemical unsteadiness in AgNPs, and (iii) inherent Ohmic losses in metallized NPs.

Key Features and Benefits

• Use of hybrid plasmonic passages to avoid Ohmic losses.
• Experimental demonstration of dequenched and augmented SPCE enhancement.
• The multifold nanogaps generated by the nano-engineered hybrids sustain innumerable hotspots catering to the attomolar sensitivity of the SPCE reporter molecule, rhodamine B (RhB).
• The proposed green nanotechnology platform is useful in disease diagnostics for monitoring the early stages of the disease and also aid in the fabrication of smart sensor chips for use in Point-of-Care (POC) devices.

Impact

• A simple, user-friendly, cost-effective methodology presenting a state of “dequenching the quenched” phenomenon successfully addressing the decade-long issue of ‘zone of inactivity’ in plasmonics.
• The subject platform is expected to find immediate deployment for real-time POC medical diagnostics. It is strongly believed that this study presents a stepping stone to a plethora of exciting plasmonic nano-architectures and disruptive diagnostics in near future with the aid of Au-Ag-Au noble metal plasmon passage rationality.
• An industry or market seeking such devices with augmented sensitivity could take forward the proposed methodology for utility in early disease diagnostics, environmental safety, and industrial applications.
• A green approach for Nano-engineering of AgAu inter-plasmonic and photonic sensor platforms that are of immense benefit for low- and middle-income countries, in resource-limited settings.
• The mobile phone-based sensor platform presents a user-eco-friendly and economical detector compared to existing high-cost spectrophotometers.

Team

Aayush Rai, Seemesh Bhaskar, Sai Sathish Ramamurthy. STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, CRIF, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh 515134, India

Paper Published In: ACS Applied Nano Materials

Read Paper Here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.1c00841

Congratulations to Mr. Sankar Krishna for receiving the 2021 CAS Trust Scholarship award!

Mr. Sankar Krishna has two actuarial papers to his credit from IFoA, UK. He wrote his third year BSc (Hons) Mathematics exams and will be pursuing MSc Maths (Actuarial stream) with focus on Property & Casualty risks. He spent the summer of 2020 interning at Tech Actuarial, focusing on claims analytics and pricing tool for group insurance products. He participated in the CAS Independent Summer Program and Actuarial Data Science workshop at the University. He is a theatre and cricket enthusiast, and plays the Trombone in the University Brass Band.

We wish him good luck in continuing actuarial education at SSSIHL.

ABOUT CAS

The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) is a leading international organization for credentialing and professional education. Founded in 1914, the CAS is the world’s only actuarial organization focused exclusively on property and casualty risks and serves over 9,100 members worldwide. CAS members are experts in property and casualty insurance, reinsurance, finance, risk management, and enterprise risk management. Professionals educated by the CAS empower business and government to make well-informed strategic, financial and operational decisions.

CAS TRUST SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The objective of the scholarship is to further students’ interest in the property/casualty actuarial profession and to encourage the pursuit of the CAS designations.
Scholarships are awarded on the basis of individual merit. The CAS Trust Scholarship Program will award up to eight scholarships to deserving students for the 2021-2022 academic year. Scholarships will range from $2,500 (4 Awards) to $5,000 (4 Awards).

Letter from CAS Trust Scholarship Committee

The SSSIHL STAR Lab Research team, led by Asst. Professor Dr. Sai Sathish Ramamurthy, has published a new paper in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces that explores the use of a novel metal-free, graphene oxide-based photonic crystal framework (GraSP engineering) for Biosensing application. It enhances the performance of plasmonic materials and overcomes Ohmic losses in metals.
 

Identifying the Issue

• Sensors are of wide-spread use in industrial processes, public health control, homeland security, safety and monitoring
• Plasmonic materials made of metal nano-architectures are world-wide used for sensor technology development. However, their performance is plagued by inevitable intrinsic Ohmic losses, that impede the performance any sensing platform.
• As a result, there is constant hunt for alternative material technology development for global market sensor industries

Objective of the Research

• Identifying the root cause which leads to Ohmic losses
• Finding a cost-effective non-metal-based solution to minimize/stop the Ohmic losses and improve the performance of plasmonic materials, which in turn translates into greater efficiencies for the industries offering solutions based on sensing technologies
• Explore the possibility of the solution aiding in improving the overall sensitivity and specificity by 3-4 times as compared to existing metal-dependent sensor techniques

Who should read this?
Anyone in the industry, working directly or indirectly on sensor development or sensing related technologies including, security, surveillance, monitoring, environmental safety monitoring, medical technologies, and disease diagnostics.
 

GraSP Engineering – A Eureka moment for the future of Sensing technologies

• The nanophotonic performance of the multistack was analyzed and successfully demonstrated to realize ‘graphene oxide plasmon-coupled soliton emission’ (abbreviated as GraSE) with steering/beaming emission characteristic as well as ‘graphene oxide plasmon-coupled emission’ (abbreviated as GraPE) with directional property
• Since both beaming GraSE and directional GraPE could be captured in a single platform, the combination led to the birth of GraSP emission platform
• An everyday example of soliton is a self-sustaining water bubble that maintains its shape as it moves, all the way from the bottom of the tank to the surface, in completely still water. Similar solitons transporting emitted photons in GraSP platform are successfully demonstrated in this research work for augmented sensor performance.
• GraSP can now simplify the existing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology with enhanced performance

Key Features and Benefits

• Use of non-metal platform to avoid Ohmic loss
• GraSP improves the overall sensitivity and specificity by 3-4 times as compared to existing metal-dependent sensor techniques
• The extreme light entrapment and augmentation via hotspots from surface states and nanoscopic volumes aided in lowering the detection limit of the HuIFN-γ antigen to 1.95 pg mL−1, for superior performance in resource limited settings
• GraSP platform is useful in disease diagnostics in early stages of disease conditions and also help in the advancement of Point-of-Care (POC) devices

Impact

• A simple, user-friendly, cost-effective methodology is adopted to realize GraSP engineering with soliton-aided metal analogues and directional emission patterns on a conventional existing sensor technology based on plasmonic platform
• The subject platform is expected to find immediate deployment for real-time point-of-care medical diagnostics. It is strongly believed that this study presents a stepping stone to a plethora of exciting plasmonic architectures and disruptive diagnostics in near future.
• An industry or market seeking such devices with augmented sensitivity could take forward the proposed methodology for utility in early disease diagnostics, environmental safety and industrial applications
• GrasP is especially beneficial for low- and middle-income countries

Team

Seemesh Bhaskar, Naga Sai Visweswar Kambhampati, K. M. Ganesh, Mahesh Sharma P, Venkatesh Srinivasan, and Sai Sathish Ramamurthy. STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh 515134, India.

Paper Published In: ACS Applied Matter Interfaces.

Read Paper Here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.1c01024

Puttaparthi, 9 April 2021: Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (Deemed-to-be University), Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, today entered into a research collaboration agreement with Uppsala University, Sweden, in the area of ‘Bio-Materials Research.’

The agreement was signed by Prof. B. Sai Giridhar, the Registrar, on behalf of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) and Prof. Åsa Kassman, Chairperson, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Uppsala University. H.E. Shri Tanmaya Lal, the Indian Ambassador to Sweden, presided over the event, along with Prof. (Dr.) C. B Sanjeevi, the Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Puttaparthi.

The collaboration will see both Uppsala University and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning leverage each other’s skills and research capabilities in the areas of bio-materials, leading to the development of dental and bone implants with the objective of harnessing its translational potential. This research will be led by Dr. (Ms.) Deepa Seetharaman, Principal Investigator (PI) for the SSSIHL, India, and Dr. Håkan Engqvist, (PI) for Uppsala University, Sweden.

This research collaboration is an important and prestigious landmark for the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. Hence, we dedicate this partnership to Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the Revered Founder Chancellor, SSSIHL, on whose guiding principles the institute was conceived as a Modern Gurukula.

“Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR)” has been an initiative by Department of Science and Technology (DST) that aims to disseminate Indian research stories among the masses in an easy to understand and interesting format to a common man.
 

In order to bridge the yawning communication gap that exists at the science-society interface, Ph.D. Scholars and Post-Doctoral Fellows (PDFs) in Science and Technology (S&T) streams are encouraged to write popular science articles and to participate in a national competition. DST had received overwhelming responses from various research labs in the country, capturing and revealing the message of science in an easy-to-understand but at the same time interesting format, to connect with the masses.
 

In this background, Sri Seemesh Bhaskar, DST-Inspire Research Fellow, STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning has been selected to the award, winning a prize of ₹10,000/- along with a Certificate of Appreciation. A panel consisting of eminent science communicators and scientists, constituted by DST, has evaluated the entries. It is a proud moment that, in more than 5000+ participants, Sri Seemesh Bhaskar has secured a position within the top 100 for his popular science story entitled “Unity in Diversity- a Moonshot to Disruptive Innovations”, transliterated on the recently published* article: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 30, 34323–34336. The award ceremony was streamed live on YouTube, Facebook, and India Science websites on National Science Day, February 28th, 2021.

For more on the Award: https://www.awsar-dst.in/results-2020

*Read the Paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c07515

The Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences (DFNS), SSSIHL, won the first and second prizes for Basic Research Category at the 5th International Diabetes Summit (Virtual) – 2021, organised by the Chellaram Diabetes Institute, Pune, from 12th to 14th March 2021. This event hosted the best-in-class experts in the field of diabetes from leading national and global diabetes institutions and had over 5000 participants.



The first prize was awarded to Prof. B. Andallu, an honorary faculty at DFNS, for her presentation on “Antihyperglycemic, antioxidant and cataract retardation effects of mulberry (Morus indica L.) leaves in STZ-diabetic rats“. Her research paper brought out the therapeutic benefits of mulberry in the amelioration of diabetic complications. The award included a certificate and prize money of Rupees One Lakh.

The second prize was awarded to Ms. Ashrita C. Haldipur, doctoral research scholar from DFNS, working under the supervision of Dr. N. Srividya, Head and Associate Professor, DFNS. Her research paper entitled “Glucose regulatory Indian red rice genotypes for diabetes management: Metabolomic, in vitro and in vivo validation”, addressed the dietary challenge faced by the rice-eating population world over suffering from diabetes using advanced and modern research methods.

Ms. Sai Kiran M, a doctoral research scholar with Department of Chemistry, SSSIHL, Anantapur won the first prize for her talk entitled “Self- assembled PVA -Based for Effective Defluoridation of Ground Water”* at the Science Technology Innovation Talks (STIN 2021) event, streamed on a virtual platform on 25-26 February 2021.

Organized by the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad to commemorate the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) on National Science Day, Young Research Fellows from across India were invited to present their research work in the form of a 3-minute presentation in the area of Material Science and Engineering at STIN 2021.

A total of 68 shortlisted participants from premier Institutes like IIScs, IITs, CSIR labs, and Central universities presented their work on 25 February, 2021 to a panel of eminent professors and senior scientists, who chose the winners based on the novelty, scientific and technical content and their relevance to societal needs.

Ms. Sai Kiran was awarded the first prize for her presentation which included prize money of 10,000 INR and a Certificate of Appreciation signed by the Chairman of the Organizing committee Dr. P.K Jain and the Director ARCI,
Dr. G. Padmanabham.

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Ms. Sai Kiran for the above-mentioned recognition and for making the University proud.