Focusing on Point-of-Care Research

At the start of graduate school, Waseem Asghar, Ph.D., said he fell in love with the idea of becoming a biomedical engineer, which applies engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes.

Asghar’s interest in the field piqued as he continued to take biotechnology courses at the University of Texas at Arlington, and intensified at Harvard Medical School and Stanford School of Medicine, leading him to study point-of-care research in his own lab at Florida Atlantic University.

Now, an associate professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, Asghar is one of four FAU faculty members who have earned the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) career award.

Asghar’s research focuses on biomedical technology creating devices for early detection of infectious viruses, microfluidic devices for sperm sorting, reproductive technologies, and early cancer diagnostics. Asghar labs also studies how to create self-testing sensors for infectious diseases such as the Zika virus – and, with COVID-19 on the rise, he is working on utilizing the point-of-care devices to enhance the COVID testing procedure.

“We want to change the process,” Asghar said. “Nowadays, testing for coronavirus has a procedure that tends to be uncomfortable for patients and the results still take up to two weeks, allowing more people to leave not fully knowing if they should quarantine.”

Research like this is where Asghar said his NSF CAREER award will help out. The award, given to Asghar for his innovative ideas in science and technology, also opens up opportunities to continue research projects for the next five years. One of those projects is a possible at-home kit for the coronavirus, along with a faster more efficient procedure for physicians to use when testing patients.

“I am excited about this award because I have worked hard for it,” Asghar said, “and I know that it will allow my research to continue to develop, so we can provide more point-of-care devices and more testing for the health care industry.”