Dr. Leyla Soleymani: From Nanoparticles to Point-of-Care Diagnostics

Mia Yao
4 days ago
2 min read

INTRODUCTION

Over the years, more emphasis has been placed on preventative medicine. Yet, real-time health monitoring remains a challenge. In a time where nanomaterials appear to be the future of healthcare devices, biosensors become a promising answer to early disease detection and prevention.

While biosensors are used in personalized healthcare by detecting biomarkers such as DNA, proteins, lipids, and small ions, these biosensors are not used in everyday life. One way of making them accessible is to make them small and wearable, which allows one to check for real-time health status. Dr. Leyla Soleymani, an engineer and a scientist who has been working on developing clinically-relevant biosensors, will have an “office hour” with us today to tell her stories and inspire students to see research from multiple angles.

Dr. Leyla Soleymani

AFFILIATION

Dr. Leyla Soleymani is a Professor and Principal Investigator of the Soleymani Group in the Department of Engineering Physics, Faculty of Engineering at McMaster University.

ACADEMIC & TEACHING BACKGROUND

Undergraduate Study:

Dr. Leyla Soleymani completed her undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at McGill University.

Graduate Study:

She then completed her M.Sc. degree at the University of Southern California, where she explored the application of nanomaterials in biology.

Following her M.Sc., Dr. Soleymani completed her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Toronto, where her research focused on Ultrasensitive Detection of Nucleic Acids using an Electronic Chip .

Teaching and Researching Career:

Following the completion of her PhD, Dr. Soleymani joined the Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University as an associate professor in 2011 and started the Soleymani Group.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

The Soleymani Group focuses on combining innovations in biochemistry, physics, electrical engineering, and material science to solve modern issues in healthcare. Current projects in the lab involve biosensing and nanofabrication, which aim to develop diagnostic platforms for early disease detection and model micro- and nano-scale sensors.

Specifically, Dr. Soleymani focuses on applying nanoparticles into biosensors such as Gold nanoparticles, Graphene-like materials, and nanostructured electrodes. This significantly increases the efficiency of the biosensors to detect biomarkers by increasing the surface area of the sensors for bio-detection, at the same time enhancing electron transfer of the materials. As a result, each biomarker can generate a stronger amplified signal, allowing detection even with little amount of the biomarkers.

AWARDS & LEADERSHIP

Douglas R. Colton Medal for Research Excellence (2011)
Canada Research Chair in Miniaturized Biomedical Devices (2015 - Present)
Dorothy Killam Fellowship (2025)

EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, we follow Dr. Leyla Soleymani as she discusses her academic journey that led to her current achievements in the Department of Engineering Physics at McMaster University. Furthermore, Dr. Soleymani shared her multidisciplinary research objectives, clinical applications of her biosensors, and her collaboration with other laboratories to explore the broader nanomaterials world.