Fischell Institute Spotlight: Ian White

Ian White is a Fischell Fellow and Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Fischell Department of Bioengineering.

He’s been interested in the Fischell Institute since joining the University of Maryland in 2008.

"The prospect of the Fischell Institute is one of the reasons that I joined UMD BIOE back in 2008,” said White. “Subsequently, I have been thrilled to see the Institute’s realization over the last several years."

White's research is both device-centric and translational. He believes that having an infrastructure to support device development and a climate that promotes translational research is critical to the success of faculty such as himself. He currently has active research collaborations with other Fischell Institute faculty, while some of his lab's projects utilize the Fischell Foundry to develop prototypes for field use of the Institute's technologies.

A typical week for White includes a heavy balance of teaching and research. Much of his time is spent developing new technological concepts and writing proposals to seek funding for these ideas. As the ideas come together, White works with students and postdoctoral researchers in his group to develop and carry out experimental plans to validate their innovations and take them to the publication stage. In addition to pursuing academic outcomes, his group is also interested in translating work, and thus, they invest time in technology transfer.

When White is not working with his research group in the Amplified Molecular Sensors Lab, he spends his time teaching as an instructor for Biomedical Electronics and Instrumentation in the spring and fall semesters. In this course, students learn the basics of electronics, how to use microcontrollers, and how to develop basic instruments using circuits, microcontrollers, and software. During the course’s lab component, students develop and test fingertip pulse measurement and gait monitoring devices.

Outside of his research and teaching efforts, White serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, which is responsible for both the bioengineering and biocomputational engineering degree programs. In this role, he oversees the programs curricula, accreditation, policies, etc., and partners with the academic office to support the student community and academic affairs.

White is trained as an electrical engineer and spent five years working in the telecommunications industry before redirecting his energy toward biomedical technologies. He utilized his optics and electronics background to enter the optical biosensing field. Currently, his research group focuses on developing new technologies for disease diagnostics. Much of their work is within the paradigm of point-of-care diagnostics. Still, more generally, the group aims to improve the speed and usability of diagnostics to enable faster and better interventions.

White and his research group are currently working on three major projects with the Fischell Institute:

Point-of-care diagnostic tool to identify patients at risk for trauma-induced multiple organ failure: For this project, he is developing an easy-to-use portable device that uses a drop of blood to determine if a patient who suffered a physical trauma is at risk of developing multiple organ failure. The device measures a particular biomarker that indicates whether the physical trauma is likely to lead to multiple organ failure, as can often happen. The test takes less than one hour and does not require any additional equipment or any manual steps other than collecting the blood droplet.

Point-of-care diagnostic for bloodborne viral infections: At-home tests for viral diseases have come a long way in recent years, but only for nasal swabs with a high viral load and a simple sample matrix. The same is not valid for bloodborne viral diseases. The research group is developing a system that takes a droplet of blood from the patient's finger and detects viral biomarkers in the blood. The test takes about one hour and does not require any additional equipment or any manual steps other than collecting the blood droplet.

Rapid discrimination of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections: Multi-drug-resistant infections are an ever-expanding problem. What’s more, treating all infections with broad-spectrum antibiotics only exacerbates the problem. Clinicians must preserve the efficacy of antibiotics by prescribing the minimally aggressive drug that will effectively treat the infection. However, current diagnostic approaches require more than a day—and sometimes as many as three days—to identify the susceptibility of infection. The research group is developing a new system that uses a novel amplification scheme to reduce the time for susceptibility determination down to a few hours instead of days.

"My group aims to develop directly translatable outcomes that will lead to improved diagnostic technologies that will improve human health," White said. "The opportunity to improve lives worldwide motivates and energizes my group to work as hard as possible to solve some particularly challenging problems."

In the future, White would like to advance his current projects through the stage-of-system performance assessments with clinical samples. Then he would like to partner with companies to translate the technologies into products that directly impact people's lives.

Published May 24, 2023