Michael Ihde, a PhD student in our group, successfully defended his dissertation today! His work in our group focused on the development of our understanding of supramolecular interactions as used in differential sensing applications. In his work, Michael contributed to the development of array-based sensing systems for multiple classes of analytes, including metal ions, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and industrial dyes. He also made significant progress towards solving the "problem of mixtures", i.e. a common shortcoming of such sensing systems when confronted with mixtures of analytes. Congratulations Dr. Ihde!

Michael Ihde and Dr. Bonizzoni both presented talks at the Bays and Bayous Symposium, supported by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, on analytical approaches to contaminants in high-salinity environments (intracoastal brackish waters, seawater, the Gulf). The symposium transitioned online due to COVID restrictions.

​Pattern-based chemical recognition systems often struggle with mixtures of analytes: even if a system is trained to recognize two pure compounds, its response to their mixtures may not be directly predictable. This hinders the application of these sensing systems, giving rise to the "problem of mixtures". In our  manuscript accepted by Analytical Chemistry Michael Ihde, a graduate student in our group, reported on a general approach and conditions leading to predictable response to mixtures of trained-for analytes. We also applied our approach to the pattern-based detection of metal ions, which often occur in mixtures. This will hopefully open promising further applications of these systems.