Graduate Student Profile: Angela Fu
Designing Polymer Sensors for Virus Detection
Home town: Corpus Christi, TX- B.S.: Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh
- Advisor: Professor Peter Kofinas (Fischell Department of Bioengineering)
- Started Program: Fall 2003
When Angela Fu began her undergraduate education, it was with an eye toward attending medical school. As she studied biomechanics and biomedical devices, however, she realized she didn't want to give up engineering. In her senior year, she was inspired by the professor of her polymers class, who introduced her to the field of biomaterials. This interest ultimately lead her to the University of Maryland's Graduate Program in Bioengineering and advisor Professor Peter Kofinas' Functional Macromolecular Laboratory, where she is able to work on projects that blend bioengineering and materials science.
Fu's goal is to use nanostructured molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to assist in the detection of viruses. MIPs are like tiny molds, into which only a specific target molecule will fit.
An MIP is created by making an impression of a target molecule in a polymer matrix. The target molecule contains functional groups, groups of atoms within its structure that have a positive or negative charge. Fu chooses a polymer that has functional groups oppositely charged to those of the target. As a result, the target molecules are drawn to and stick in the polymer, which is in the form of a thin film. When the film is washed out, cavities are left in its surface matching the size, shape, and functional groups of the target molecule. From then on, the now-molecularly imprinted polymer can be used to detect the target molecule within a given environment. This is because if the target molecule is present, it—and only it—will be attracted to and fit snugly in the film's empty spaces, like a shaped peg that fits into only one kind of hole.
There's an easy way to explain it all, Fu says: Just think of dessert! The process, she explains, could be compared to playing with fruit and Jello. Imagine strawberries as the target virus molecules, laid on a plate. Jello is poured over the top. When the Jello sets and is peeled away, and the fruit is removed, a pattern of strawberry-shaped impressions are left behind into which only other strawberries will fit.
The research is significant since the technique can potentially be modified to detect viruses that can cause diseases. MIPs have been used in the past to detect certain proteins, but rarely larger, more complicated targets such as the ones Fu studies. For her work, she uses the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as her target molecule. TMV is easily obtained, well-characterized (i.e., scientists have a thorough understanding of its molecular structure), and can be modified to suit the needs of different kinds of experiments.
Knowing a lot about her target up front allows Fu to concentrate on the imprinting and detection techniques. Once an effective system has been created, she and other researchers could adapt her work to detect viruses, toxins and diseases harmful to people, animals and plants in real-world settings.
Once Fu has created an MIP, she needs to test its effectiveness. The MIPs' ability to differentiate viruses based on shape is important. However, many viruses share a similar overall shape. While this could be a problem, Fu notes, viruses of the same shape often vary widely in surface structure, like a row of cars that appear identical, but are each made out of a different metal. To investigate the ability of MIPs to distinguish viruses at the molecular level, she exposes her tobacco mosaic virus-detecting MIPs to the cucumber green mild mottle virus (CGMMV). CGMMV has the same rod-like structure as TMV, but different functional groups. If her MIPs are successful, they should not attract and capture the cucumber virus, even though it could physically fit within the imprints.
After earning her Ph.D., Fu would like to continue her work with polymers in a large company setting, another step toward her goal of creating marketable products of her own design to be used in the fight against biological warfare; and to see them adapted to detect protect workers from other hazardous materials in industry settings.
Fu was attracted to the Graduate Program in Bioengineering and the University of Maryland for a variety of reasons. She liked the idea of being with us as the young, energetic program took shape, and she was also drawn by the Clark School's national ranking. She appreciated the time and support students are given in their first year to take classes and choose an advisor. "Other schools told me I had to find an advisor with funding to support me before I even started," she explains. "Even though I'd been accepted my attending was contingent on that." And, she adds, academics aside, as a sports fan attending Maryland Terrapin Division I basketball games for free is a great perk!
She also enjoys living in the Washington, D.C. area. "I like everything about D.C. except for the traffic!" she tells us. "I like the fact that you can get any kind of food you want, take the Metro [subway] to downtown, walk around the museums, drive an hour and go skiing, or drive three hours to the beach or New York City. There are three airports, a million malls, and any type of sporting event you could want. It's so centrally located, and there are so many different people. If I could live anywhere on the east coast, I'd live here."
When asked if she would recommend the Graduate Program in Bioengineering to students weighing their options, her answer was an enthusiastic yes! "We have new professors who are doing innovative research," she says, "and now that bioengineering has its own department, we have access to a lot of resources. The administrative staff is excellent, the students are friendly...Everyone in BioE is open to discussion—they're not completely focused on their own work." Her lab has been the best thing about her experience so far: "Everyone in it is willing to help each other. We talk about stuff, we hang out....I know that a lot of labs aren't like ours."
Fu has this advice for current undergraduates majoring in bioengineering: "It's a good idea to go to grad school. Because bioengineering research encompasses or relates to virtually all engineering disciplines, as well as life sciences, I feel you can be in a better position for employment or advancement if you're focused. If you really want the premiere jobs, or to create medical devices, you need the experience earning a M.S. or Ph.D. will give you."
She also has a friendly warning for anyone considering a graduate program in bioengineering, no matter what discipline their undergraduate degree is in: "You have to want to go to grad school, and you have to like research. If you don't, at least don't go into BioE! It's a lot of research, a lot of trial and error and figuring out what works, because the field is so new, and it's evolving."
