Marya Lieberman

Biography

My research focuses on paper analytical devices (PADs) to solve a host of analytical problems in low resource settings. We create millifluidic structures such as solution channels, reagent storage areas, and mixing zones on paper or nitrocellulose, and we develop chemical color reactions that work in mild conditions. This enables us to automate operations that would normally be carried out with glassware in a lab setting. Some ongoing technical goals are improving quantification of the target analytes, broadening the targets to include “biological” drugs, integrating PADs with vibrational spectroscopy and LCMS, and manufacturability/commercialization. User-centered design and field testing are integral to our projects, and researchers in my group currently do part of their work in community settings in the US and in Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, or Cameroon. Tracking and analysis of large sample sets is also a common feature of these projects, and most researchers in the group learn to use R, Matlab, or Python to analyze spectra, sample metadata, or PAD images. Our PADs have been trialed in Bangladesh, Britain, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Israel, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Malawi, Palestine, the Philippines, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and the US, and by organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, SIDAI, and the US Pharmacopia.