Grant and Award Announcement

FAU researchers have been awarded a five-year NIH grant to address the urgent need for a reliable, rapid and affordable self-test for early HIV detection. Expected to cost less than $5, the novel micro-chip technology will detect HIV during the acute infection phase or viral rebound, deliver rapid results in about 40 minutes and remain stable without refrigeration. The handheld device will be battery-powered and operate fully automated, providing true “sample-in-answer-out” functionality that requires minimal user manipulation.

Brian Brown, PhD, Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He was honored for his seminal work in gene therapy and functional genomics, which has helped transform the fields and contributed to key advancements in medicine and biotechnology. Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is one of the highest professional distinctions in the field. It recognizes the top two percent of experts in medical and biological engineering, and its members are celebrated for their exceptional work in the field. Members are honored for their outstanding contributions to "engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology." Dr. Brown’s election recognizes his groundbreaking work developing innovative technologies that have been broadly used across biomedical fields, including in cancer, immunology, and genetic disease research and therapeutic development.