Hatice Ceren Ates receives Klee Prize 2022

The German Society for Biomedical Engineering (DGBMT) and the Klee Family Foundation award Hatice Ceren Ates, a doctoral student at the Department of Microsystems Engineering and
FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies at the University of Freiburg, the Klee Prize 2022 for her research work. The prize of the German Society for Biomedical Engineering and the Klee Family Foundation for the promotion of Young Scientists is endowed with 5,000 euros. In her doctoral thesis, Ates is developing a multiplexed biosensor platform, that can be used to determine the concentration of antibiotics in different body fluids. She is supported by Dr. Can Dincer, Head of the junior research group "Disposable Microsystems" at FIT and Dr. Wilfried Weber, Professor of Synthetic Biology and member of BIOSS Centre for Biological Signalling Studies at the University of Freiburg.

Multiplex biosensor measures antibiotic content in various body fluids

"The risk of antibiotic resistance is increasing in our society. That's why doctors are trying to keep the concentration of drugs in their patients' blood stable within a certain range," explains Ates. “In order to be able to carry out the measurements required for this on a regular basis with a cost and time effective manner, I have developed an electrochemical multiplexed biosensor for monitoring antibiotics over time, which can simultaneously work with different body fluids - for example, blood, plasma, urine, saliva or even with breath samples. In the study, we demonstrate that antibiotic concentrations can be measured in mammalian breath and that this concentration correlates with the antibiotic concentration in their blood. This has not been possible before.”

The test is based on a penicillin-binding protein, a natural receptor protein that resistant bacteria use to recognize and fight the antibiotics that threaten them. "By using these proteins to our advantage," Ates says, "we beat the bacteria at their own game."

The second place of the Klee Prize 2022 also went to the University of Freiburg: With it, Dr. Maria Francisca Porto Cruz from the Chair of Biomedical Microtechnology at the Institute of Microsystems Engineering was honored for her dissertation. She developed an implant that can improve the transmission of signals from the brain to a computer. This technology is used in brain-computer interfaces, which could be used to help people who are unable to communicate either with their voice or with gestures.

The Klee Family Foundation and the German Society for Biomedical Engineering at the VDE, Association of Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies, awards scientists working on the frontier between medicine and technology annually.

Research paper by Hatice Ceren Ates:
Ates, H. C., Weber, A., Dincer, C. et al. (2022): Biosensor-Enabled Multiplexed On-Site Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Antibiotics. Adv. Mater. 34, 2104555. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202104555

About the Klee Family Foundation

To the press release of the VDE