Diagnosing and Treating Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance Using Gold Nanoparticles

* This is an open PhD defence—all welcome. *

PhD Candidate

Mohamed Ahmed Abdou Mohamed

Supervisor

Warren Chan, Distinguished Professor of Nanobioengineering

Abstract

The continued emergence of infectious diseases and the development of antimicrobial resistance represent a major global health challenge in the 21st century.

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of infectious pathogens is vital for both the treatment and prevention of new forms of antimicrobial resistance.

The current advances in nanotechnology have afforded the development of new simple and rapid diagnostic assays as well as novel therapeutic technologies.

This thesis presents new and original work that exploits the physical and chemical properties of gold nanoparticles to diagnose and treat infectious diseases.

The contributions to the field are two-fold. Earlier work was aimed at developing a rapid, sensitive and simple platform for the detection of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, where signal readout could be observed with the naked eye.

Second, the photo-thermal characteristics of gold nanoparticles were used to create a novel plasmonic thermogel that disinfected antimicrobial resistant bacteria in surgical wounds, preventing the use of a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

It is anticipated that the contribution of this thesis will continue to advance the implementation of gold nanoparticles for the development of commercial diagnostics and therapeutics.

Collectively, this work should improve the mitigation of infectious diseases and reduce the risk of the development of further antimicrobial resistance.