Faculty Profile for Dr. Shannon E Weigum

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Dr. Weigum is an interdisciplinary scientist and researcher focused upon the development of optical biosensors and microfluidic devices that can detect and diagnose disease at the point-of-care. Dr. Weigum is currently an Associate Professor in Biology and core faculty for the Materials Science, Engineering and Commercialization Program at Texas State University. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, a master’s degree from Texas State, and a doctoral degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering at Rice University before joining the Texas State faculty in 2011. Dr. Weigum has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts and poster abstracts, four book chapters, and holds two US patents. Her work has been featured nationally in Popular Science, CNET news and on the cover of the journal Lab-on-a-Chip.

Research Interests

The goal of my research is to design simple, patterned microfluidic devices for high-sensitivity diagnostic assays (whole-cells, DNA, proteins, and viruses) which are rapid, inexpensive, and can be deployed at the point-of-care. The key focus areas for this research include: (1) novel sample preparation methods for concentrating and isolating target pathogens or clinically relevant biomarkers prior to downstream assays; (2) alternative capillary-driven microfluidic substrates, such as paper and; (3) the integration of straightforward colorimetric, optical and spectroscopic detection schemes.