March 19, 2019 – As part of an ongoing project conducted in partnership with Dr. Rita Maalouf, Associate Professor at the Department of Sciences – Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), Dr. Nicole Jaffrezic-Renault, from the Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 (UCBL), was invited to give a talk at NDU titled “Nanomaterials for Biosensing Amplification.”
With over 544 papers, and 10,300 citations to her name, Dr. Jaffrezic-Renault has an impressive resume. In addition to her post at the UCBL, she is also Director of Research at the “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS) in France, president of the “Analytical Division of the French Chemical Society,” and coordinates several European and national projects for the development of microsystems for biomedical and environmental monitoring of food safety. A role model for women in science, Dr. Jaffrezic-Renault has been honored with both with the “Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur,” 2012, the highest French order of merit for military and civilains, and with the “Officier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite,” 2016.
Dr. Jaffrezic-Renault’s talk revolved around using nanomaterials, minuscule synthetic particles, to enhance the detection of potentially harmful substances, like bacteria, in human blood and food. Specifically, the talk focused on using magnetic nanoparticles for the immunodetection of biomarkers and bacteria in blood. The importance of electrochemical sensors based on molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for the sensitive detection of environmental, food and biomedical target molecules was also highlighted.
Dr. Jaffrezic-Renault was pleased to meet the FNAS Dean, Dr. Georges Eid, and to visit the sciences laboratory and NDU campus. She was impressed by the work done by faculty members at NDU and hoped that her visit marked the first step in a long path of fruitful collaboration.