Prof Steffi Krause
Dr. rer. nat., MRSC, FHEA

 

Research Group News

March 2024

Rachel Jacques (middle) after her PhD viva with examiners Torsten Wagner and Andrei Sapelkin and supervisor Steffi Krause.

Rachel Jacques passes her PhD viva

21 March 2024

Congratulations to Rachel Jacques who passed her PhD viva yesterday. Rachel's thesis is entitled 'Towards in-situ optical and electrochemical imaging to monitor action potentials for in-vitro and in-vivo applications'. She was supervised by Steffi Krause and Lei Su. Rachel pioneered the measurement of action potentials with single cell resolution … [more]

Winner Sarina Mathew (Year 4 MBBS & Intercalated BSc)

Undergraduate research posters win prizes at ILF

18 March 2024

Students from across the School of Engineering and Materials Science, including the Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR), third year BEng students, and the Intercalated BSc in Bioengineering presented their research projects at the Industrial Liaison Forum on 6th March 2024. All students engaged in lively discussion with our academics … [more]

January 2024

Proud to be an Engineer

Engineers Celebrate Athena Swan Success

18 January 2024

Gender equality recognised by Athena Swan Bronze Award First recognised in 2010, the School has now had this award conferred for another five years until 2029, where the conditions were met "directly and fully". The Athena Swan Charter works across the globe to support and transform gender equality in Higher … [more]

June 2023

Rachel presenting her talk

Rachel Jacques presents talk at prestigious World Congress on Biosensors in Busan, South Korea

8 June 2023

The World Congress on Biosensors is the largest and most well-established conference in the field, attracting approximately a thousand attendees from industry, academia and government organisations worldwide. Rachel presented a talk entitled "Highly sensitive imaging of cardiomyocyte action potentials with LAPS through control of the contact force between organoid … [more]

December 2022

Pressing an organoid consisting of beating cardiomyocytes onto the sensor device improves communication between sensor and cells and enables highly sensitive monitoring of the electrical signals from individual living cells.

Controlling the contact force between organoid and light-addressable potentiometric sensor enables highly sensitive monitoring of cardiomyocyte action potentials

21 December 2022

Monitoring of action potentials of beating cardiac cells called cardiomyocytes can give insights into physiological and disease mechanisms and aid the development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia, i.e., irregular heartbeats. Patch clamp measurements are the gold standard in electrophysiological measurements, but are difficult to operate … [more]

November 2022

Photoelectrochemical calcium ion sensor based on hematite nanorods

Hematite nanorods – a promising material for photoelectrochemical sensing and imaging

10 November 2022

Hydrothermally grown hematite nanorods have been shown to be an excellent substrate for photoelectrochemical imaging and sensing. The material displayed enhanced photocurrent compared to hematite films, good stability, excellent spatial resolution and good sensitivity to pH. Coupling the hematite nanorods with a thin calcium ion selective PVC membrane, we obtained … [more]

July 2022

Rachel presented a talk and poster entitled 'High-sensitivity LAPS imaging of cardiomyocyte action potentials' and Bo presented a talk and poster entitled 'Photoelectrochemical detection of Ca(II) ions using hematite nanorods'.

The Electrochemical Sensors group attends the International Workshop on Engineering Functional Interfaces (EnFI) 2022 in Maastricht

6 July 2022

Three members of our group attended the EnFI in Maastricht. The conference focuses on the field of surface engineering in its broadest sense. This rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field instigates collaborations between scientists from multiple disciplines as it contains elements from physics, engineering, biology, medicine, informatics and chemistry. Both, Rachel Jacques … [more]

April 2022

Muchun after her viva

Congratulations to Muchun Zhong on Passing Her PhD Viva

29 April 2022

Congratulations to Muchun Zhong passed her PhD viva on Friday 29 April 2022. Muchun’s thesis was titled "Investigation of silicon (on sapphire) with monolayers in LAPS and photoelectrochemical sensors". She was supervised by Steffi Krause and Michael Watkinson. Muchun presented her work at the International Symposium on … [more]

March 2021

High-speed, high resolution photoelectrochemical imaging

Photoelectrochemical imaging with high spatiotemporal resolution: publication in Biosensors and Bioelectronics

1 March 2021

Electrochemical or photoelectrochemical imaging of living cells has great potential for label-free, functional monitoring of cell responses, but is either relatively slow or suffers from poor resolution. Detailed electrochemical imaging has been limited to single-cell investigations, making it time-consuming to produce biologically relevant data. Our publication “Photoelectrochemical imaging system … [more]

February 2021

3D-photoelectrochemical imaging will be implemented using porous light-addressable semiconductors on FTO coated glass.

EPSRC New Horizons grant on 3D photoelectrochemical imaging

1 February 2021

Prof Steffi Krause, Dr Joe Biscoe, Dr Thomas Iskratsch and Dr Bo Zhou have been awarded an EPSRC New Horizon’s grant (EP/V047523/1) of £200k to develop new measurement technology for 3D photoelectrochemical imaging. Electrochemical imaging techniques are powerful tools for the investigation of topography, charge and … [more]

December 2020

Bo after his viva

Bo Zhou Passes his PhD Viva

9 December 2020

Congratulations to Bo Zhou who passed his PhD viva yesterday. Bo's thesis title is "Photoelectrochemical imaging of live cells using semiconductor substrates". He was supervised by Steffi Krause and Karin Hing. He presented his work at the International Symposium on Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics in 2019, published two full … [more]

October 2020

The ammonia sensor is based on a vertical diode structure formed from zinc oxide nanorods and a gold contact deposited by thermal evaporation.

Scientists develop ammonia gas sensor based on a zinc oxide nanorod-gold Schottky diode

9 October 2020

Ying Tu's paper describing a novel room temperature sensor for ammonia has been accepted by ACS Sensors. As ammonia is gaining importance in the production and storage of hydrogen, there is an increasing demand for energy-efficient ammonia detectors. The device described in this paper boasts low power consumption, good … [more]

October 2019

AC photocurrent imaging at an epitaxial layer of InGaN/GaN on sapphire was shown to be sensitive to the impedance of a polymer dot and the negative surface charge of an isolated cell. AC photocurrents were excited with a focused, intensity-modulated 405 nm laser and measured with a lock-in amplifier. Images were obtained by measuring the photocurrent while moving the electrochemical cell with respect to the laser beam using an XYZ positioning system.

InGaN suitable as a substrate for photoelectrochemical imaging in life sciences

11 October 2019

Bo's paper on the use of InGaN as the semiconductor substrate for AC photoelectrochemical imaging has been accepted by Sensors. AC photocurrent imaging at metal oxide semiconductors auch as ITO and ZnO nanorods has been shown to suitable for bioimaging applications such as the measurement of the negative surface … [more]

September 2019

Professors Steffi Krause, Julien Gautrot and Henri Huijberts.

Success for SEMS Academics in 2019 Promotion Round

17 September 2019

Following the 2019 Promotion Round we are very pleased to announce that eleven members of staff from SEMS have been promoted. This is a fantastic achievement that demonstrates the quality of work undertaken by staff in the School. In particular congratulations to our three new Professors - Julien Gautrot, Steffi Krause … [more]

June 2019

Protease sensitive hydrogels based on peptide cross-linked poly(2-oxazoline) co-polymer

ACS Biomacromolecules paper on peptide cross-linked poly(2-oxazoline) as a sensor material for the detection of proteases accepted

7 June 2019

Norlaily Ahamad's paper on peptide cross-linked poly(2-oxazoline) as a sensor material for the detection of proteases has been accepted by Biomacromolecules. Increased levels of active proteases are frequently associated with inflammatory conditions, and there is increasing demand for point of care devices for monitoring inflammation. Norlaily cross-linked a … [more]

May 2019

Muchun answering questions at the end of her talk.

Muchun and Bo present at the XXV. International Symposium on Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics in Limerick

28 May 2019

Muchun Zhong's and Bo Zhou's presentations were well received by the Bioelectrochemistry community. Muchun presented her work on light-addressable potentiometric sensors for the detection of zinc, and Bo talked about photoelectrochemical imaging with iron oxide nanorods. [more]

April 2019

The negative surface charge of the cell reduces the amount of hydroxide ions diffusing to the sensor surface thereby decreasing the local photocurrent.

First report of cell surface charge mapping with a photoelectrochemical imaging system appears in Analytical Chemistry

15 April 2019

Fan's and Bo's paper on the photoelectrochemical imaging of cell surface charges has been been accepted by Analytical Chemistry. Photoanodic currents at indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass immersed in an electrolyte solution were shown to be sensitive to surface charge, pH and impedance. Our laser scanning setup … [more]

Principle of the collagenase sensor

Norlaily's paper about collagenase sensor accepted

2 April 2019

Our paper entitled 'Collagenase Biosensor Based on the Degradation of Peptide Cross-Linked Poly(ethylene glycol) Hydrogel Films' written by Norlaily Ahmad, Burcu Colak, De-Wen Zhang, Michael Watkinson, Remzi Becer, Julien Gautrot and Steffi Krause has been published in Sensors 2019, 19(7), 1677; doi:10.3390/s19071677. Peptide cross-linked hydrogels were deposited on gold coated, piezoelectric … [more]

February 2019

Norlaily and Steffi after the viva

Norlaily Ahmad passes her PhD viva

28 February 2019

Congratulations to Norlaily Ahmad who passed her PhD viva today. Norlaily's thesis title is "Biosensor for matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) based on peptide-linked polymers". She was supervised by Steffi Krause and Remzi Becer and also had significant input from Julien Gautrot and Michael Watkinson. She presented her work … [more]

October 2018

Ying Tu with his examiners Martyn McLachlan (Imperial College, left) and Theo Kreouzis (QMUL, right)

Congratulations to Ying Tu

24 October 2018

Congratulations to Ying Tu who passed his PhD viva on Wednesday 24th October 2018. Ying did his PhD on the "Investigation of ZnO nanorods as chemical and biological sensors" under the supervision of Steffi Krause and Joe Briscoe. [more]

June 2018

The enzymatic degradation of a polymer was monitored with LAPS images recorded using ZnO nanorods.

Analytical Chemistry paper accepted

22 June 2018

Ying's paper on Light-Addressable Potentiometric Sensors (LAPS) using ZnO Nanorods as the Sensor Substrate for Bioanalytical Applications has been accepted by Analytical Chemistry. In this work, for the first time, a 1D material - ZnO nanorods with a high aspect ratio - was developed as a new substrate material for … [more]

Invited talk at the 4th Conference on Impedance-Based Cellular Assays

8 June 2018

Steffi Krause gave an invited talk on "Light-addressable potentiometric sensors for cell imaging applications" at the 4th Conference on Impedance-Based Cellular Assays, which was held in Edinburgh from 6th to 8th June 2018 (http://www.ibca2018.net/). [more]

May 2018

The instrument will combine two electrochemical imaging techniques which measure cell responses on the top and bottom layer

Queen Mary awarded funding to build instrument which will revolutionise monitoring of cellular processes

29 May 2018

Queen Mary University of London has been awarded funding to lead a joint project to build an instrument which will revolutionise the monitoring of cellular processes in tissues that line organs. The grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has a total value of £823,329 over three … [more]

December 2017

Arrays of carbon dots immobilised on ITO were shown to be suitable for electrochemical imaging.

Materials Horizons paper on the photoelectrochemical response of carbon dots accepted

14 December 2017

Dewen's paper on photoelectrochemical imaging with carbon dots has been accepted by Materials Horizons. This work started a new collaboration of our group with the research groups of Magda Titirici, Oliver Fenwick and Andrei Sapelkin. Here are the details of the publication: De-Wen Zhang, Nikolaos Papaioannou, Naomi Michelle David, Hui … [more]

November 2017

Fan Wu with the external examiner, Prof. Torsten Wagner and Dr Steffi Krause.

PhD success for SEMS student Fan Wu

16 November 2017

Congratulations to Fan Wu for successfully defending her PhD thesis “Investigation of light-addressable potentiometric sensors for electrochemical imaging based on different semiconductor substrates”. Fan was supervised by Steffi Krause and Michael Watkinson. [more]

December 2016

Pihua Wen (left), Steffi Krause (2nd right), & Guang Li (right) being congratulated by the Wen Wang.

Three SEMS colleagues awarded HEA Fellowships

2 December 2016

Steffi Krause, Pihua Wen & Guang Li are the latest three staff in SEMS to have completed the ADEPT application. This means that all three have also now been awarded their Fellowships of the Higher Education Academy and can now use the designation FHEA after their names. Congratulations to all three … [more]


Other News

November 11th, 2017:

Ying Tu's first paper accepted: Ying Tu, Shuqun Chen, Xuan Li, Jelena Gorbaciova, William P. Gillin, Steffi Krause, and Joe Briscoe, Control of oxygen vacancies in ZnO nanorods by annealing and their influence on ZnO/PEDOT:PSS diode behaviour, Journal of Materials Chemistry C

November 10th, 2017: Prof. Torsten Wagner visits our lab

November 9th, 2017: Congratulations to Fan Wu for passing her PhD viva!

The group celebrates in the Half Moon with the examiners, Prof Torsten Wagner and Dr Isaac Abrahams.

 

September 2017:  Group garden party

July 2017:

Paper accepted: Zhang, De-Wen; Wu, Fan; Krause, Steffi, "LAPS and SPIM imaging using ITO coated glass as the substrate material", ,  Analytical Chemistry, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.7b01898 

April 2017:

Paper accepted: Fan Wu, Inmaculada Campos, Steffi Krause "Biological imaging using light-addressable potentiometric sensors (LAPS) and scanning photo-induced impedance microscopy (SPIM)", Proceedings of the Royal Society A

March 2017:

Paper accepted: Fan Wu, De-Wen Zhang, Jian Wang, Michael Watkinson, Steffi Krause “Copper contamination of self-assembled organic monolayer modified silicon surfaces following a “click” reaction characterized with LAPS and SPIM”, Langmuir, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b03831

August 2016:

Paper accepted: De-Wen Zhang, Fan Wu, Jian Wang, Michael Watkinson, Steffi Krause “Image detection of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by light-addressable potentiometric sensors (LAPS)”, Electrochemistry Communications, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elecom.2016.08.017

July 2016:

Fan, Dewen and Inma present their work at the Engineering of Functional Interfaces (EnFi) meeting in Wildau, Germany (https://www.th-wildau.de/enfi2016/enfi20160.html).

May 2016:

Paper accepted: Jian Wang, Inmaculada Campos, Fan Wu, Jingyuan Zhu, Gleb B. Sukhorukov, Matteo Palma, Michael Watkinson, Steffi Krause, “The effect of gold nanoparticles on the impedance of microcapsules visualized by scanning photo-induced impedance microscopy”, Electrochimica Acta, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2016.05.017