Alida Russo
Winner
What encouraged you to submit your application to the 2024 Postgraduate Research Publication of the Year?
I’ve seen many students participating in this each year and I’d always thought about it, but I did not have any paper published yet. Different students from my own group took part and even won in the past years, in fact our supervisors have always encouraged us to participate. That’s why, once I saw the call for the application this time, I was very excited because I knew I could finally be part of it.
What inspired you to choose the subject of your paper?
Milk is one of the most widely consumed food worldwide by people of all ages, from infants to the elderly. Therefore, it is necessary to have more point-of-care-tests to test its quality and safety. Specifically, the presence of residual antibiotics in milk could be an issue across diverse aspects, such as economic impact for dairy industry, health risks for consumers, environmental consequences and, most critically, it is connected to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is major a global health threat.
What’s your paper about and how did you prepare for it? What role did research excellence play in your approach?
The paper shows the development of a point-of-care test (POCT) for detection of penicillin G residue in milk in 15 min, using a pen direct writing approach. POCTs are diagnostic tools that allow to obtain relevant information without needing a centralized laboratory. They have many advantages, such as fast detection, also in remote environments, decreased cost of diagnostic solutions, user-friendliness and robustness. Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are a good example of POCTs, being a paper-based sensor for detection of analytes in complex mixtures with results obtained within 5-30 minutes, based on an immunochemical reaction between antibody and antigen, working as a lock and key binding mechanism. The LFIA was then coupled with Surface enhanced resonant Raman scattering (SERRS), achieving a dual detection, colorimetric and spectroscopic, in order to perform quantitative detection of penicillin G in milk.
The optimisation of the pen direct writing approach was really key to prepare this work as well as the choice and optimization of all the biomaterials used for the development of the POCT. At the same time it was very important to build a collaboration within Tyndall and outside it with the FABLAB group at the University of Turin.
The selection for Research Publication of the Year is extremely competitive. What is your advice for those aspiring for nomination next year?
Sure it is competitive but I would suggest trying anyway! During the PhD we are so focused on getting results and we would always want them to be perfect. We should think more that research is not always perfect and this “imperfection” is actually the reason why we do it, to improve. So, this is a good way to celebrate your own work, even if you think it may not be at the same levels of your peers and it is a great way to show all the excellent work done in Tyndall.
What is the single most significant support Tyndall has been able to offer you in achieving your research goals?
One of the things that makes Tyndall a great research place is the people and the community you have. Definitely, I need to thank my supervisor and my entire group for their expertise, help and support but, in general, having scientific interdisciplinary discussions with people working here and also developing external collaborations is very inspiring and it impacts the research.