4/1/2026 Cassandra Smith
A professor within The Grainger College of Engineering is part of a team that includes researchers from University of California San Francisco and Washington University that was awarded a$4.8M grant from the Department of Defense to develop a portable, affordable biosensor device that uses plasmonic fluors, paper test strips, smartphone-linked readers, and artificial intelligence to detect biomarkers for sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome. The sensing method and handheld ~$50 reader has already proven effective in detecting gonorrhea antigen in urine, performing on par with expensive laboratory-based systems.
Written by Cassandra Smith
A professor within The Grainger College of Engineering received a grant in partnership with Washington University and UCSF to simplify disease detection.
Electrical and computer engineering professor Brian T. Cunningham is a principal investigator for a project improving testing for disease and illness. It originally helped advance testing for diagnosing gonorrhea, but is now expanding to detect biomarkers for sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS.
Cunningham is collaborating with Prof. Pratik Sinha, MD and Prof. Srikanth Singamaneni at Washington University along with Prof. Carolyn Calfee, MD, at UCSF. Cunningham said one of Singamaneni's specialties is synthesizing nanoparticles made of gold that can be configured in unique ways. Singamaneni created a plasmonic fluor — a tiny gold particle covered with fluorescent dyes that glow brightly when energized. They are effective molecular tags.
Cunningham and Singamaneni received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop plasmonic fluors in paper test strips to detect a variety of diseases. "Our part here at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was to make a detection reader that the paper test strip can slide in to," Cunningham said. Once the strip is in the device, it is illuminated with high intensity LED light. An image sensor on a circuit board detects the fluorescence, processes the image ,and reads the test.
The device is relatively small — Cunningham compared it to the size of a deck of cards. He said they wanted it to be "very small, handheld and inexpensive." It costs around $50.
The overall goal of the project is to make the test strips highly sensitive. Cunningham compared their test strips to at-home COVID-19 testing strips but noted their limitations. "The conventional test strip doesn't detect your COVID until you have a lot of COVID antigen in your test sample," Cunningham said. When a red line appears on the test, it is because red is the color of light scattered by gold particles. "So, there's gold particles in the red line that are labeling each detected molecule. When you shine white light at them, they scatter red light, which is what we can see with our eyes."
The new Department of Defense grant supports generation of a second-generation device capable of detecting multiple biomarkers simultaneously, with a focus on ARDS and sepsis.
There is urgency in being able to detect these diseases. Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency caused by the body’s extreme, dysfunctional response to an infection, which damages its own tissues and organs. If not treated immediately and correctly, sepsis can be deadly."
Cunningham said a fast diagnosis is especially important in military settings. "They are talking to us about how to make our research robust enough that it can be used in medical hospitals and medical centers in battle settings."
The second-generation device would feature a user-friendly smartphone app interface with data uploaded to the cloud. Information from the biosensor test would be combined with other patient data in the medical facility's system. All the data would then be analyzed using artificial intelligence to "form a prediction about the best way to treat that person right away," Cunningham said.
The technology has already been used to detect gonorrhea. After testing hundreds of samples, Cunningham said their system "works just as well as an expensive laboratory-based system."
As the project moves into its second generation, Cunningham said the team's ultimate goal extends beyond the laboratory. With tools small enough to fit in a pocket and smart enough to guide treatment decisions in real time, the technology could one day change how diseases are caught and treated — on the battlefield and beyond.
The Grainger College of Engineering Affiliations