Dr. Pedro J. Resto Irizarry

About me

Dr. Pedro J. Resto Irizarry is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (ME) at UPRM. He is the project PI (Principal Investigator) and will be responsible for the completion of the project and guidance of the students involved. Dr. Resto has been working with biosensors since 2012, and with microfluidics in general since 2008. He has worked on point-of-care pathogen detection tools using DNA, antibodies, and enzymatic approaches for animal and environmental health. His projects make use of PDMS and acrylic microfluidic devices. Published works include the detection of ESKAPE (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species) bacteria at the point-of-care using a self-loading PDMS microfluidic device and isothermal DNA amplification, the development of a free DNA colorimetric biosensor, the use of Raman spectroscopy for materials characterization, and various applications of microfluidics. Dr. Resto was a Key Personnel in the NSF ERC (Engineering Research Center) for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) using microfluidics and Raman spectroscopy for the detection of Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs) in bioreactor supernatant (2018-2022). Dr. Resto was Principal Investigator of a UPRM Sea Grant College Program sponsored project titled “Development of a Rapid, Portable, and Automated Fecal Bacteria Biosensor for Fresh and Sea Water Sources” for the development of a microfluidic-based platform for the rapid detection of fecal contamination is recreational water. This last project has resulted in two patent submissions and a third technology disclosure (2022-2022). Dr. Resto is currently Key Personnel in the NSF EPSCoR Center for the Advancement of Wearable Technologies (CAWT) where he works developing laser-scribed graphene electrodes for bio-detection and microfluidic devices for sample handling and enrichment.

All the best!