Dr. David S. Sebba

The PhysOrg article Gold, DNA Combination May Lead To Nano-Sensor said

The ability to use genetic material to assemble nanoscopic particles of gold could be an important step toward creating tiny “spies” that will be able to infiltrate individual cells and report back in real time on the cell’s inner workings.
 
A team of Duke University materials engineers and chemists has developed tiny gold nanostructures that can create signals from subtle changes in light reflecting off their nanoscale surfaces. The sub-cellular size of the nanostructures and their ability to absorb or scatter light as their structure changes makes them appealing as biological sensors, the researchers said.
 
By measuring color changes, researchers can tell what is happening at the molecular level, said lead researcher Anne Lazarides, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. But while these light-reporting particles are relatively easy to see, it is a challenge to get things that small organized.
 
Other members of the Duke research team were David Sebba, mechanical engineering and materials science; Jack Mock and David Smith, electrical and computer engineering; and Thomas LaBean, chemistry and computer science.

David S. Sebba earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2003, and his Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University in 2008.
 
Dave’s research interests include active nanostructures, plasmonics, and nanoscale self assembly, as well as the development of state of the art instrumentation for nanostructure characterization. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the La Jolla Bioengineering Institute in La Jolla, California.
 
He coauthored Reconfigurable Core-Satellite Nanoassemblies as Molecularly-Driven Plasmonic Switches and Magnetic field induced concentration gradients in magnetic nanoparticle suspensions: Theory and experiment.