Ciara O'Sullivan

Ciara O'Sullivan

Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Engineering Sciences

Ciara O' Sullivan received a BSc in Analytical Chemistry from Dublin City University in 1992, a PhD in Biotechnology from Cranfield University in 1996 and then went on to lead the sensors group at University College Cork from 1996-99. She then took up a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (1999-2001) and was then awarded a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship which she pursued for 1 year prior to taking up her current position as ICREA Research Professor and establishing the Nanobiotechnology and Bioanalysis Group at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. She is group leader of the GENCAT funded Consolidated Group INTERFIBIO.  Her group details can be found at www.interfibio.com.


Research interests

Her research interests lie in the development of electrochemical and optical biosensors exploiting advances in tailored biocomponents. Presently, her work focuses on reducing to practise cost-effective molecular diagnostics for screening and monitoring of disease, as well as on the development of aptamers for application in optical and electrochemical molecular aptamer beacons. The approaches for molecular diagnostics being developed include parallelised real-time electrochemical next generation sequencing, electrochemical array based primer extension and elongation for multiplexed SNP detection, multiplexed electrochemical miRNA detection and quantitative paper diagnostics as companion tools for the future paradigm of pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine.

Selected publications

– Leonardo, Sandra; Gaiani, Greta; Tsumuraya, Takeshi; Hirama, Masahiro; Turquet, Jean; Sagrista, Nuria; Rambla-Alegre, Maria; Flores, Cintia; Caixach, Josep; Diogene, Jorge; O’Sullivan, Ciara K.; Alcaraz, Carles; Campas, Monica 2020, ‘Addressing the Analytical Challenges for the Detection of Ciguatoxins Using an Electrochemical Biosensor’, Analytical Chemistry, 92, 7, 4858 – 4865.

– Kortli, Salah; Jauset-Rubio, Miriam; Tomaso, Herbert; Abbas, Mohammed Nooredeen; Bashammakh, Abdulaziz S.; El-Shahawi, Mohammad S.; Alyoubi, Abdulrahman O.; Ben-Ali, Mounir; O’Sullivan, Ciara K. 2020, ‘Yersinia pestis detection using biotinylated dNTPs for signal enhancement in lateral flow assays’, Analytica Chimica Acta, 1112, 54 – 61.

– Lerga, Teresa Mairal; Skouridou, Vasso; Bermudo, M. Carmen; Bashammakh, Abdulaziz S.; El-Shahawi, Mohammad S.; Alyoubi, Abdulrahman O.; O’Sullivan, Ciara K. 2020, ‘Gold nanoparticle aptamer assay for the determination of histamine in foodstuffs’, Microchimica Acta, 187, 8, 452.

– Toldra, Anna; Dolors Furones, M.; O’Sullivan, Ciara K.; Campas, Monica 2020, ‘Detection of isothermally amplified ostreid herpesvirus 1 DNA in Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) using a miniaturised electrochemical biosensor’, Talanta, 207, 120308.

– Simonova, Anna; Magrina, Ivan; Sykorova, Veronika; Pohl, Radek; Ortiz, Mayreli; Havran, Ludek; Fojta, Miroslav; O’Sullivan, Ciara K.; Hocek, Michal 2020, ‘Tuning of Oxidation Potential of Ferrocene for Ratiometric Redox Labeling and Coding of Nucleotides and DNA’, Chemistry-a European Journal, 2020, 26, 1286-1291.


Selected research activities

– Associate Editor, Analytical Chemistry (ACS)

– International Reviewer, Biochemistry of Living Cells, Agence de Recherche France

– Awarded ISCIII CoVID19 project for development of rapid tests for detection of SARS-CoV-2 associated antibodies

– Technology transfer for development of SARS-CoV-2 rapid tests (LinchBiotech SL (Spain); Achiko (Switzerland)