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

- Liu J, Morales-Narvaez E, Orozco J, Vicent T, Zhong G & Merkoci A 2018, 'Bioluminescent nanopaper for rapid screening of toxic substances', Nano Research, 11, 1, 114 - 125.

- Zamora-Galvez A, Morales-Narvaez E, Romero J & Merkoci A 2018, 'Photoluminescent lateral flow based on non-radiative energy transfer for protein detection in human serum', Biosensors & Bioelectronics, 100, 208 - 213.

- Baptista-Pires L, Orozco J, Guardia P & Merkoci A 2018, 'Architecting Graphene Oxide Rolled-Up Micromotors: A Simple Paper-Based Manufacturing Technology', Small, 14, 3, UNSP 1702746.

- Capoferri D, Alvarez-Diduk R, Del Carlo M, Compagnone D & Merkoci A 2018, 'Electrochromic Molecular Imprinting Sensor for Visual and Smartphone-Based Detections', Analytical Chemistry, 90, 9, 5850 - 5856.

- de la Escosura-Muniz A, Espinoz-Castaneda M, Chamorro-Garcia A, Rodriguez-Hernandez CJ, de Torres C & Merkoci A 2018, 'In situ monitoring of PTHLH secretion in neuroblastoma cells cultured onto nanoporous membranes', Biosensors & Bioelectronics, 107, 62 - 68.

- Yakoh A, Alvarez-Diduk R, Chailapakul O & Merkoci A 2018, 'Screen-Printed Electroluminescent Lamp Modified with Graphene Oxide as a Sensing Device', Acs Applied Materials & Interfaces, 10, 24, 20775 - 20782.

- Russo L, Puntes V & Merkoçi A 2018, 'Tunable electrochemistry of gold-silver alloy nanoshells', Nano Research, 11, pp 6336–6345. 

- Quesada-Gonzalez D, Jairo GA, Blake RC II, Blake DA & Merkoci A 2018, 'Uranium (VI) detection in groundwater using a gold nanoparticle/paper-based lateral flow device', Scientific Reports, 8, 16157.

- Quesada-Gonzalez D & Merkoci A 2018, 'Nanomaterial-based devices for point-of-care diagnostic applications', Chemical Society Reviews, 47, 13, 4697 - 4709.