University of Nottingham Malaysia
Faculty of Science and Engineering
     
  
 

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Kasturi Muthoosamy

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Biography

Kasturi Muthoosamy is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Engineering, the Foundation in Engineering program division. She joined the University of Nottingham Malaysia in the year 2011 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted in year 2016. She has supervised (or in leading process) 7 PhD students and has graduated 2 PhD students. Her research area includes designing drug delivery platforms using nano-graphene composites for targeted delivery of anti-cancers drugs. Her research interest is also on biosensing for cancer cell detection, specifically focusing on theranostics system which allows in situ detection, imaging, and therapy. Her projects are with collaboration from both local and international universities and research institutions.She has successfully obtained more than 13 national and international research grants and has won more than 10 research awards, either by her our contribution or by collaboration. She has published more than 26 peer-reviewed research articles (h-index: 11) and has contributed to many international conferences including as invited speaker.

During her earlier education, she obtained her PhD from University of Nottingham, specializing in nanomaterial synthesis and drug delivery. Her MSc is from National University of Singapore (NUS) majoring in Medicinal Chemistry. Her research area in NUS includes protein modifications, purifications, development of activity assays and synthesis of bio-cleavable linkers for drug delivery purposes with collaborations from Institute of Bioengineering & Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore and Max Plank Research Institute, Germany.

Expertise Summary

  1. Nanomaterials synthesis (graphene, fullerene, CNTs)
  2. Graphene-metal (Ag, Au, Iron oxide) & biocompatible graphene nano-composite synthesis
  3. Drug delivery
  4. Biosensing
  5. Theranostics design & development
  6. Protein-Metal nanoclusters synthesis (Au, Ag & AuAg)
  7. Exploration of a novel synthesis approach to chemically modify proteins such as RNase A, Lysozyme and Myoglobin.
  8. Synthesis of sophisticated linker groups such as ethylene oxide linkers carrying a biotion group as well as reactive substituents such as ethynyl or azido groups.
  9. Organic chemistry reactions such as transition metal catalyzed reactions or click reactions.
  10. Protein purification techniques.
  11. Protein chemistry, in particular introductions of a single functionality onto the surface of different proteins.
  12. Reaction controls via MALDI-Tof-MS, purification and characterization of chemically modified proteins.
  13. Development of lysozyme activity assay and enzyme kinetics.

Teaching Summary

Modules taught: Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Study Skills

Other expertise: Medicinal Chemistry, Supramolecular Chemistry, Organic & Analytical Chemistry, Materials Chemistry, Biochemical

I take great pleasure in teaching engineering students Chemistry. I often incorporate various teaching techniques and technologies available to keep learning enjoyable, informative and readily-applicable.

Research Summary

Current Projects /Objectives

1. C60 Fullerene - Folic acid Nanohybrid Electrochemical Biosensor as a Diagnostic tool for Simpler and Earlier detection of Cancer.

2. New colorimetric & fluorogenic nanobiosensors for telomerase activity detection.

3. Development of multimodule "turn-on" protein-gold nanoclusters for targeted theranostics and imaging of colon cancer and its metastases.

4. Graphene-gold (G-Au) nanocomposite for enzyme-less and selective electrochemical detection of nitric oxide, a critical cancer biomarker.

5. Highly sensitive enzyme-less biosensor using folic acid modified reduced graphene oxide for early cancer detection.

6. Reduced graphene oxide-silver (RGO-Ag) nanocomposite and its dual applications as an antibacterial agent and cancer biomarker sensor.

7. Designing drug delivery vehicles/platforms, targeted delivery of anti-cancer drugs, functionalization of graphene and graphene oxide for drug delivery,

8. Graphene-metal nanoparticles and nanoclusters synthesis.

9. Biosensing for disease and cancer detection using modified fullerene and graphene as mediators.

Selected Publications

Past Research

Protein modifications, development of protein activity assay, organic synthesis of bio-cleavable linkers.

Future Research

1. Modification and optimization of natural chemopreventative agent, curcumin.

2. Theranostics application of the metal nanoclusters modified with therapy proteins.

Faculty of Science and Engineering

University of Nottingham Malaysia
Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih
Selangor Darul Ehsan
Malaysia

telephone: +6 (03) 8924 8000
fax: +6 (03) 8924 8001

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