Arben Merkoçi

Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia

Engineering Sciences

ICREA Research Professor and head of Nanobioelectronics & Biosensors Group at ICN2 (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia). He obtained his PhD at University of Tirana working on ion selective electrodes. Since 1992 he has been doing research as postdoctoral fellow and research professor at Polytechnic Univ. of Budapest, Univ. of Ioanina, Univ. degli Studi di Padua, Univ. Politècnica de Catalunya, Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona and New Mexico State Univ. His research is focused on the integration of biological molecules and other species with micro- and nanostructures with interest for the design of novel (bio)sensors. He has published more than 260 articles and supervised 27 PhD thesis. He is co-founder of two spin-off companies, PaperDrop  dedicated to nanodiagnostics and GraphenicaLab to electronic printing. 


Research interests

1. Nanoparticles study and application in innovative sensing technologies. 2. Development of novel nanostructured, nanochannel flexible platforms based on nanoimprinting and ink-jet printing technologies. 3. Study of graphene related materials and their integration into biosensing platforms. 4. Development of novel paper-based platforms with improved architecture, microfluidics and enhanced detection capabilities. 5. Design and application of lab-on-a-chip devices for biosensing, drug screening and other applications.

Selected publications

- Morales-Narvaez E, Florio Sgobbi L, Spinola Machado SA & Merkoci A 2017, 'Graphene-encapsulated materials: Synthesis, applications and trends', Progress In Materials Science, 86, 1 - 24.

- Morales-Narváez E, Baptista-Pires L, Zamora-Gálvez A &  Merkoçi A 2017, 'Graphene-Based Biosensors: Going Simple', Advanced Materials, 29, 7, UNSP 1604905. 

- Cheeveewattanagul N, Morales-Narvaez E, Hassan A-RHA, Bergua FJ, Surareungchai W, Somasundrum M & Merkoci A 2017, 'Straightforward Immunosensing Platform Based on Graphene Oxide-Decorated Nanopaper: A Highly Sensitive and Fast Biosensing Approach', Advanced Functional Materials, 27, 38, 1702741.

- Siepi M, Morales-Narvaez E, Domingo N, Monti DM, Notomista E & Merkoci A 2017, 'Production of biofunctionalized MoS2 flakes with rationally modified lysozyme: a biocompatible 2D hybrid material', 2d Materials, 4, 3, 035007.

- Álvarez-Diduk R, Orozco J & Merkoçi A 2017, 'Paper strip-embedded graphene quantum dots: a screening device with a smartphone readout', Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 976. 

- Chalupniak A & Merkoci A 2017, 'Toward integrated detection and graphene-based removal of contaminants in a lab-on-a-chip platform', Nano Research, 10, 7, 2296 - 2310.

- Golmohammadi H, Morales-Narvaez E, Naghdi T & Merkoci A 2017, 'Nanocellulose in Sensing and Biosensing', Chemistry Of Materials, 29, 13, 5426 - 5446.

- Monton H, Medina-Sanchez M, Soler JA, Chalupniak A, Nogues C & Merkoci A 2017, 'Rapid on-chip apoptosis assay on human carcinoma cells based on annexin-V/quantum dot probes', Biosensors & Bioelectronics, 94, 408 - 414.

- Quesada-González D & Merkoçi A 2017, 'Mobile phone-based biosensing: An emerging “diagnostic and communication” technology', Biosensors and Bioelectronics,