Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - On Thursday, April 27, Doug Hansmann will give a lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville as part of the nanotechnology lecture series started earlier this semester by the UW-Platteville College of Engineering, Mathematics and Science (EMS). This event will be held in Room 222 of Ottensman Hall, beginning at 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.

For the past two years, Hansmann has been director of product research and development at Platypus Technologies, a small bionanotechnology startup company in Madison. Hansmann received his Ph.D. in environmental chemistry and technology from UW-Maidson. After post doctoral research in physical and colloid chemistry at the Dutch Agricultural University in Wageningen, the Netherlands, he returned to the United States and worked 17 years at Bayer Diagnostics and Abbott Laboratories in point-of-care diagnostic test development as well as process engineering for reagent manufacturing scale-up.

At UW-Platteville, Hansmann will present "Liquid Crystal Based Tests for the Detection of Antibodies and Toxic Vapors." Liquid crystals are commonly used in a wide variety of electronic displays. However, they can also be a multi functional component for generating information in medical and environmental diagnostic devices. Work at Platypus Technologies builds upon the abilities of liquid crystals to detect the binding of biomolecules at interfaces, to amplify the resultant change in optical transmission and to transduce the optical signal for reporting clinical results. Examples of the use of liquid crystals as detectors and amplifiers of biomolecular surface interactions will include the detection of viral antibodies in serum samples as well as the detection of airborne vapors such as organophosphate pesticides.

The spring 2006 semester marks the first semester UWP is offering an interdisciplinary class on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems and Nanotechnology. The lecture series serves as a complement to the course and is given by individuals in the field of nanotechnology, including researchers, engineers and academic specialists. For more information on this event, contact Hisham Abdel-Aal, UWP assistant professor of general engineering, at (608) 342-1515 or via e-mail atabdelaah@uwplatt.edu.

Contact: Hisham A. Abdel-Aal, assistant professor, Department of General Engineering, (608) 342-1515, abdelaah@uwplatt.edu

Formatted by: Kate McKinney, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, mckinnka@uwplatt.edu