The Grainger College of Engineering
Bioengineering

Enrique Valera

Enrique Valera
Enrique Valera
  • Research Assistant Professor

Primary Research Area

  • Bio-Micro and Nanotechnology

For More Information

Biography

I am a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where my work sits at the intersection of microfluidics, biosensors, and point-of-care diagnostics. My research focuses on developing compact, high-performance technologies for the rapid detection of cells, proteins, and pathogens, with applications spanning infectious diseases and cancer. A central goal of my work is to translate advanced sensing and lab-on-a-chip technologies into practical tools that can operate beyond traditional laboratory environments. I earned my Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC, Barcelona) in 2008. I then joined the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)as a postdoctoral researcher supported by a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship. In 2012, I moved to the Biomedical Research Networking Center in Bioengineering, Biomaterials, and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), where I continued developing interdisciplinary research at the interface of engineering, chemistry, and clinical diagnostics. In 2014, I moved to the United States to join the Department of Chemistry at UIUC as a postdoctoral researcher, followed by a position as Research Scientist in the Bashir Lab in 2016. In 2021, I joined the Department of Bioengineering at UIUC as a Research Assistant Professor. I am also an Associate Member of the Cancer Center at Illinois and an Affiliate of the Carle Hospital Biomedical Research Center, the Center for Genomic Diagnostics at the Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology, and the Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. Over the past two decades, my research has evolved from electrochemical biosensors for food safety to advanced electrical and optical point-of-care platforms for clinical diagnostics and global health. I have authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in leading international journals, presented my work at numerous national and international conferences, and contributed to funded research projects in Europe, Spain, and the United States. Innovations arising from my research have resulted in four granted patents in Spain and the United States.

Education

  • Ph.D. 2008, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain

Academic Positions

  • Research Assistant Professor, 03/2021 - Present, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL, USA.
  • Research Scientist, 07/2018 – 03/2021, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL, USA.

Professional Societies

  • Biomedical Engineering Society

Service on Department Committees

  • Grad Executive Committee
  • Graduate Admissions Committee

Service on College Committees

  • Council for Community, Opportunity, and Engagement

Research Interests

  • Unbiased Single‑Cell Analysis: Integrated microfluidic technologies that unify circulating tumor cell isolation, sustained single‑cell culture, and multimodal molecular and functional analysis, establishing broadly applicable design principles for next‑generation microfluidic platforms that enable single‑cell drug response profiling from liquid biopsies.
  • Immune Response Monitoring: Biosensor and microfluidic systems for detecting inflammation‑associated biomarkers and profiling host immune responses to enable disease stratification and personalized treatment strategies.
  • Rapid Infectious Disease Detection and Sepsis Diagnostics: Non‑culture‑based technologies for ultra‑sensitive detection and classification of bacterial and viral pathogens directly from whole blood.
  • Microfluidic and Lab‑on‑a‑Chip Diagnostics: Integrated microfluidic platforms that combine sample processing, amplification, and detection into compact, automated systems for point‑of‑care use.

Research Statement

One of my primary goals as a researcher is to contribute to the development of a new generation of medical tools that move beyond the one-size-fits-all paradigm of therapeutics. I am driven to advance personalized medical technologies conceived as global health solutions, tools that are effective, scalable, and usable even within the constraints of resource-limited and remote settings worldwide.

My long-term vision is to enable faster, more precise diagnostics and global health technologies that support more targeted and effective therapies. For example, accurate identification of the specific bacterial pathogen responsible for an infection would significantly reduce the reliance on broad-spectrum antibiotics. Similarly, monitoring the immune response to infection could contribute to the stratification of septic patients into well-defined endotypes, enabling more tailored clinical interventions. I am particularly interested in making diseases and even disease risk detectable at much earlier stages, when intervention is more successful or prevention is still possible. In addition, I aim to develop diagnostic platforms that can be rapidly adapted to emerging viruses or new biological threats.

To achieve these goals, my research focuses on the development of point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices and microfluidic platforms for the detection, identification, and quantification of biomarkers and pathogens. Biosensor technologies, combining selective biological recognition elements with suitable transducers for signal conversion and processing, are expected to play a critical analytical role in clinical diagnostics, food safety, environmental monitoring, and related fields. The broad applicability of biosensors naturally enables highly multidisciplinary collaborations spanning engineering, applied sciences (chemistry, biology, and physics), and application-driven domains with significant societal impact, such as medicine and agriculture.

Successful integration of these disciplines must be reflected in diagnostic devices that meet rigorous application-specific requirements, including sensitivity, response time, reproducibility, portability, automation, multiplexing capability, and cost-effectiveness. Robust biosensor platforms must also be versatile, allowing the interchangeability of biorecognition elements to address a wide range of analytical targets. Meeting these challenges is essential for the translation of biosensor technologies from the laboratory to commercialization and routine clinical use.

Primary Research Area

  • Bio-Micro and Nanotechnology

Chapters in Books

Selected Articles in Journals

Articles in Conference Proceedings

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