Assoc. Prof. Xiangqun Zeng improves the Quartz Crystal Microbalance

A Quartz Crystal Microbalance is an instrument that can detect mass deposited on crystal surface by monitoring changes in the microbalance oscillation frequency. In the December 17, 2008 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, Associate Professor Xiangqun Zeng, of the Department of Chemistry, and her coworkers published an article about a Multichannel Monolithic Quartz Crystal Microbalance Gas Sensor Array (Volume 81, Pages 295-603). What does this instrument have to do with biomedical research? Zeng et al. write that in the past decade the Quartz Crystal Microbalance has been explored as a transducer for monitoring a plethora of biospecific interactions, including enzymatic reactions, DNA interactions, protein-ligand interactions, and has been used to detect biomarkers, drug targets, virus capsids, bacteria, and living cells. Zeng's laboratory is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. First author Xiaoxia Jin recently received a PhD from Oakland University in Biomedical Sciences: Health and Environmental Chemistry.