Speaker

Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Peter Ertl, Technische Universität Wien

Date & Time

 April 30, 2021, 9:00 AM Pacific / 12:00 PM Eastern / 18:00h MEZ

Abstract

The incidence of viral distribution and infection has soared over the past decades due to population growth, deforestation and increased travel, resulting in a global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 viral outbreak. As a consequence, rapid detection and identification of viral infections is a pressing human health issue. Faster, more accurate diagnosis will benefit health care systems in particular, by significantly reducing time-to-result and providing better more reliable epidemiological data that can be used for infectious disease control. In course of the presentation current Covid-19 test kits are reviewed and evaluated for point-of-care and on-site applications. Additionally, our efforts to develop a self-powered sensing solution combining liquid handling unit, microbatteries, optical read out and microsensor arrays within a stand-alone lab-on-a-chip system will be presented.

Short Bio

Prof. Ertl holds Master’s degree in Food Sciences and Biotechnology from the University of Life Sciences, Vienna Austria, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Waterloo, Canada and received his postdoctoral training as a biophysicist at the Department of Chemistry of the University of California at Berkeley (US). In 2003 Dr. Ertl co-founded a biotech start-up company (RapidLabs Inc.), where he served a number of years as Director of Product Development in Kitchener (Canada) developing benchtop-sized microbial analyzers. Following his return to Austria in 2006, Dr. Ertl initially worked as Senior Scientist in the Biosensor Technology unit at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). During his tenure at AIT, Dr. Ertl was also granted a Fulbright Visiting Scholarship at UC Berkeley (2012) and conducted visiting scientist positions at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2013) and the Medical Center of the University of California at San Francisco (2014) and received his habilitation (venia docendi) in Nanobiotechnology at the University of Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna Austria. In 2016, Dr. Ertl was appointed full Professor of Lab-on-a-Chip Systems for Bioscience Technologies at the Faculty of Technical Chemistry of the Vienna University of Technology (TUW) and holds since 2019 a visiting researcher position at the Department of Bioengineering of the Imperial College London, UK. His research focuses on the development of advanced _in vitro_ diagnostic microsystems, lab-on-a-chip technologies and organ-on-a-chip systems. Dr Ertl is also founder and speaker of the Austrian Microfluidic Initiative, Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Organs-on-a-Chip and Chief Technology (CTO) officer of SAICO Biosystems KG as well as Co-founder of Pregnerate GmbH.

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ASciNA Austria Chapter

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