Dr. Zeev Rosenzweig

Professor, Dr. Zeev Rosenzweig

Research Interests

Analytical chemistry, luminescence, nano-sensors

	Phone: (504) 280-6848		Email: zrosenzw@uno.edu		Office: CSB 238

The development and application of luminescence-based nanometric sensors is at the center of Zeev Rosenzweig's program. Dr. Rosenzweig and his graduate students explore the fabrication possibilities of these nanosensors and use them for non-invasive, non-destructive, and rapid analysis of biological entities, e.g. single cells. The project, which is funded by a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation (NSF) aims to develop new techniques to determine a cellular abnormality or a disease state at the very early stage of the development or the single cell level. Recent accomplishments of the group include the fabrication of lipobeads based sensors for pH, calcium ions and molecular oxygen and their application for the analysis of macrophages and neurons. Lipobeads, which are phospholipid coated polymer nanoparticles show a significant improvement in chemical and mechanical stability compared to liposome based nanosensors.. The development of fluorescence sensing lipobeads for zinc and chloride ions, and thiols is currently under development.

A second research direction is the synthesis of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) and their application in luminescence sensors. Passivated semiconductor nanocrystals show excellent chemical and photostability compared to commonly used organic fluorophors, which makes them an ideal choice as labeling materials in cellular studies. This research project, which is funded by DoD-DARPA is a part of a large range of activities that take place in the Advanced Material Research Institute (AMRI) at UNO. The institute focuses on the synthesis, characterization and application of nanophase materials in areas ranging from the development of new computer memory chips to biomedical devices and clinical diagnostics tools.

A third research project involves the development of analytical fluorescence-based techniques for real time monitoring of drug delivery from nanoparticles. The project, which is funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents, aims to develop new formulations for targeted drug delivery that are optimized with respect to desirable drug release properties.

Selected Publications

"Luminescent CdSe Quantum Dots Doped Cross Linked Micelles," Yongfen Chen and Zeev Rosenzweig, Nanoletters (2002) (accepted)

"Liposome-Based Systems for Biomedical Diagnostics and Therapy," Thuvan Nguyen, Gabriela Dumitrascu and Zeev Rosenzweig, Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry (2002) (accepted)

"Luminescent CdS Quantum Dots as Selective Ion Probes," Yongfen Chen and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal. Chem. (2002) 74 (19) 5132-5138.

"Laser Based Double Beam Absorption Detection for Aggregation Immunoassays using Gold Nanoparticles," Thanh Nguyen and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal and Bioanal. Chem (2002) (accepted, published online)

"Calcium Ion Fluorescence Sensing Properties of Liposomes Containing Alexa-Labeled Calmodulin," Thuvan Nguyen and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal and Bioanal. Chem. (2002) 374: 69-74

"A Novel Fluorescent Oxygen Indicator for Intracellular Oxygen Measurements," Jin Ji, Nitsa Rosenzweig, Imani Jones and Zeev Rosenzweig, Journal of Biomedical Optics (2002) 7, 404-409.

"Development of an Aggregation Based Immunoassay for Anti Protein A using Gold Nanoparticles", Thanh Nguyen and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal. Chem. (2002) 74(7) 1624-1628.

"Adherence of lectin-coated micro lipobeads to cortical neurons in cell culture," Mark A. DeCoster, Nikolas G. Bazan, Thuvan Nguyen, and Zeev Rosenzweig FASEB J (2002) 16 (4): A37.

"Molecular Oxygen Sensitive Fluorescent Lipobeads for Single Cell Analysis", Jin Ji, Imani Jones, Nitsa Rosenzweig and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal. Chem. (2001) 73(15), 3521-3527

"Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Fluorescence Sensing Lipobeads for Intracellular pH Measurements," Thuvan Nguyen, Gabriela Dumitrascu, Kerry P. McNamara, Nitsa Rosenzweig and Zeev Rosenzweig, Anal. Chem. (2001) 73(14), 3240-3246.