The "bugs" Antje Baeumner chases are in the news -- pathogenic organisms like Bacillus anthracis, the anthrax bacterium; Cryptosporidium parvum, the threat to drinking water in this country and worldwide; and Dengue virus, the mosquito-borne cause of Dengue fever that's not just in Third World countries anymore.
Students of the assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering -- who is co-chair of the New Life Sciences Initiative's Physical Sciences/Life Sciences Interface -- often are ahead of the headlines, not only for the pathogens she investigates, but because of the devices she builds to track them.
Baeumner is the creator of state-of-the-art biosensors that can test for deadly microorganisms, including prototypes of a biowarfare-agent sensor that soldiers can use at the front. She is the inventor of a miniaturized, portable biosensor that can test for pathogens in minutes in the field instead of hours or days in the laboratory, and her next project is to build a "universal biosensor" to test for just about any pathogen.
Baeumner teaches the methods she uses to build biosensors to her students. Her course on bioanalytical techniques, open to undergraduate and graduate students, has young researchers writing proposals, designing and building biosensors with a variety of resources available across the campus, and then reporting their results. The final products of the students' research, Baeumner boasts, often are just as innovative as her own.
Another popular undergraduate course taught by Baeumner is biotechnology for engineers, spanning the field from genetic engineering to bioprocessing. Like all her classes, the course has a hands-on lab and the students must devise a project and finish by the end of the semester.
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