We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Outstanding Early Career Research Award 2025 from Sensors & Diagnostics: a team comprising Tao Yu, Aditi Dey Poonam, Amy Halbing, Shengwei Zhang, Yingmiao Liu, Zheng Li, William Marx, Andrew B. Nixon and principal investigator Qingshan Wei.
Their award-winning paper, “A digital nonenzymatic nucleic acid amplification assay for ultrasensitive detection of cell-free microRNA in human serum“, introduces a simpler and more compact tool than PCR for amplifying diagnostically-important nucleic acid fragments, which they have dubbed sequential nonenzymatic amplification or SENA.
In their own words:
“In this work, we demonstrated an enzyme-free nucleic acid amplification strategy for point-of-care (POC) use, such as detecting disease-related cell-free microRNA in human serum samples. The assay was constructed based on two layers of isothermal DNA-only amplification circuits, first hybridization chain reaction (HCR) and then catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA). One of the key innovations of this work is the transformation of the solution assay into a digital chip-based format, which not only enables assay miniaturization but also improves the detection sensitivity down to 5 femtomoles (fM), orders of magnitude better than many other nonenzymatic nucleic acid amplification assays. The chip format also makes the assay compatible with smartphone readout. The developed assay was beta-tested to quantify miR-21 and miR-92 expression levels in colorectal cancer patient serum with accuracy comparable to RT-PCR. ”
About the team:
- Tao Yu received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Nanjing University, China. After completing postdoctoral training at North Carolina State University, he is now an R&D Engineer at SMIC, focusing on the research of plasma etching for chips.
- Aditi Dey Poonam is currently a PhD student in Wei’s group at North Carolina State University. Her research interests include point-of-care molecular assays, microfluidics, and lab-on-a-chip devices.
- Amy Halbing, previously an undergraduate researcher in Wei’s group, is now a PhD student at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, studying the relationship between childhood maltreatment, diurnal cortisol patterns in pregnancy, and immune cell profiles in mid-gestation.
- Shengwei Zhang completed his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. He has research interests span from nanomaterials synthesis, characterization, to 3D printing.
- Yingmiao Liu is a Senior Research Associate at Duke Phase I Biomarker Laboratory. With more than 30 years of experience in RNA and protein biomarker research, Dr. Liu is dedicated to searching for predictive markers that enable precision medicine across diverse cancer patient populations.
- Zheng Li received a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and finished postdoctoral training at North Carolina State University. He is currently a full professor at Jinan University, China, focusing on developing wearable sensors, noninvasive diagnostics, and nano-enabled technologies for human health, agriculture, and environmental monitoring.
- William Marx, previously an undergraduate researcher in Wei’s group, is now an Associate Specialist at Merck.
- Andrew B. Nixon is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Phase I Biomarker Laboratory at Duke University. He is a nationally recognized expert regarding the development of biomarkers, bringing extensive experience in coordinating multi-investigator and multi-center correlative analyses at Duke and the NCI-NCTN network. Dr. Nixon serves in various leadership roles within the NCI, working with diverse multi-disciplinary teams focused on improving cancer patient outcomes through biomarker science.
- Qingshan Wei is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and also the lead investigator for this work, who leads a research team at NC State, focusing on developing point-of-care diagnostic and sensing technologies for human and plants.
Accepting the award, the team added:
“We are very honored to receive the Sensors & Diagnostics Outstanding Early Career Research Award 2025. We would like to extend our special thanks to the award selection committee of Sensors & Diagnostics for this nice recognition. We would also like to highlight that this study is a result of wonderful interdisciplinary collaborations between different institutes and fields. The contributors include engineers and chemists from NC State, and medical researchers and clinicians from Duke. This award is the best reward for collaborative research at the interface of engineering and biomedicine, which will encourage us to continue this path, with the ultimate goal of moving the best diagnostic technology from the lab to the clinic and eventually into patients’ hands.”
We are proud to celebrate the team’s accomplishment, and look forward to following their future work.
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