Marya Lieberman // People // Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry // University of Notre Dame

Marya Lieberman

Analytical Chemistry in Low Resource Settings

Biography

2016-present: Professor, University of Notre Dame
2002-2016: Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
1996-2002: Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame
1994-1996: Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology
1994: Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Washington
1989: B.S. in Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Selected Awards

2022: J. Calvin Giddings Award for Excellence in Education
2022: James A. Burns, C.S.C., Award
2020: Reinhold Niebuhr Award
2019: Eminent Scientist Lecturer, American Chemical Society
2015: Partners for Progress Prosperity (P3) Award, ACS Joint Great Lakes/Central Region
2010: Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
2010-2011: Kaneb Faculty Fellow
2001-present: Reilly Fellow
1998: NSF Career Award
1994-1996: NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship

Research Interests

Paper Analytical Devices

In the early 2000's, researchers discovered that nearly half of the antimalarial medications in some developing countries were fake. These products caused over 120,000 deaths per year. IR, NMR, and HPLC can easily measure the quality of essential medicines, so why are bad quality products killing people in the developing world? The problem is that these technologies are designed for countries with abundant resources. But expensive instruments, trained operators, and high purity supplies are just unavailable in many places in the world. The development of new technologies that are scalable and implementable in low resource settings is a compelling research problem that can impact people's lives all over the world.

My lab is designing paper analytical devices (PADs) to solve a host of analytical problems in low resource settings. Paper is printed with hydrophobic ink to create millifluidic structures such as solution channels, reagent storage areas, and mixing zones. This enables us to automate operations that would normally be carried out with glassware in a lab setting. Many reactions and assay methods used before the age of spectroscopy can be adapted to the paper platform and done in a field setting rather than a laboratory. Current work focuses on synthetic biology for creating biosensors to embed in the paper and on techniques for trace (ppm, ppb) analysis in paper-based systems.

Paper test cards made in our group have been trialed in Britain, the US, Israel, Tanzania, the Philippines, India, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Liberia, and Ghana, and by non-governmental organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières, SIDAI, and MITI Health. Design and prototyping is an integral part of the projects, and researchers in my group travel for field tests in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, or Nepal.

Recent Publications

Whitehead, H. D. and Lieberman, M. "Rapid, Instrument-Free Colorimetric Quantification of DNA using Nile Blue" 2022 Analytical Methods, 14 (5), pp.574-580. DOI: 10.1039/d1ay01598b.
Tighe, M.; Jin, Y. K.; Whitehead, H. D.; Hayes, K.; Lieberman, M.; Pannu, M.; Plumlee, M. H. and Peaslee, G. F. "Screening for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Water with Particle Induced Gamma-Ray Emission Spectroscopy" 2021 ACS ES&T Water, 1 (12), pp.2477-2484. DOI: 10.1021/acsestwater.1c00215.
Roller, R. M.; Sumantakul, S.; Tran, M.; Van Wyk, A.; Zinna, J.; Donelson, D. A.; Finnegan, S. G.; Foley, G.; Frechette, O. R.; Gaetgens, J.; Jiang, J. N.; Rinaolo, K. C.; Cole, R. S.; Lieberman, M.; Remcho, V. T. and Frederick, K. A. "Inquiry-Based Laboratories using Paper Microfluidic Devices" 2021 Journal of Chemical Education, 98 (6), pp.1946-1953. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00214.
Lockwood, T.; Huynh, P.; Richard, A.; Sightes, E.; Bailey, K.; Ray, B. and Lieberman, M. "Community Overdose Surveillance: Comparing Substances Collected from the Death Scene Investigation to Toxicology Results" 2021 Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 224, 108722. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108722.
Lockwood, T.; Vervoordt, A. and Lieberman, M. "High Concentrations of Illicit Stimulants and Cutting Agents Cause False Positives on Fentanyl Test Strips" 2021 Harm Reduction Journal, 18 (1), 30. DOI: 10.1186/s12954-021-00478-4.
Bliese, S. L.; Berta, M. and Lieberman, M. "Involving Students in the Distributed Pharmaceutical Analysis Laboratory: A Citizen-Science Project to Evaluate Global Medicine Quality" 2020 Journal of Chemical Education, 97 (11), pp.3976-3983. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00904.