We recently published one last portion from Dr. Yifei Xu's dissertation work on the discrimination of beta-lactam antibiotics in water. This paper was recently published in a special issue of the journal Sensors dedicated to sensors and applications in diagnostics, food and environmental analysis. Yifei, a recent PhD graduate from our group, had previously published a method for discrimination and quantitation of carboxylates in neutral water. Expanding on that work, she was able to develop a method to discriminate carboxylate-containing antibiotics in water media. Widespread abuse of antibiotics (e.g. added to animal feed to improve growth rates, or prescribed in excess) leads to a reduction in their efficacy, and may harm the environment. Yifei's rapid optical chemical sensing method detects very common beta-lactam antibiotics in the penicillin and cephalosporin families in water. This work was also featured in a press release by the Alabama Water Institute. Congratulations Yifei!
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