Rate My Professor Abraham Qavi

Abraham Qavi, MD, PhD, serves as Assistant Professor in Residence in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, and Assistant Professor in Residence in the Department of Chemistry, School of Physical Sciences. He is also Director of Innovative Laboratory Diagnostics, Director of Point-of-Care Testing, and Associate Director of Clinical Chemistry at UC Irvine Medical Center. Board-certified in clinical pathology by the American Board of Pathology, Qavi completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He received dual B.S. degrees in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine in 2007, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012, and an M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 2015.

Qavi's research interests include diagnostics, photonics, plasmonics, virology, pathogens, neglected tropical diseases, host-pathogen response, and immunology. His laboratory at UC Irvine develops photonic resonators, such as whispering gallery mode microbubble resonators and silicon photonic microring resonators, along with plasmonic-enhanced sensors to enable ultrasensitive, rapid detection of viruses including filoviruses like Ebola and coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2. Key publications comprise "Whispering-gallery sensors" (Matter, 2020), "Multiplexed detection and label-free quantitation of microRNAs using arrays of silicon photonic microring resonators" (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2010), "A Flexible, Quantitative Plasmonic-Fluor Lateral Flow Assay for the Rapid Detection of Orthoebolavirus zairense and Orthoebolavirus sudanense" (ACS Infectious Diseases, 2024), "Rapid detection of an Ebola biomarker with optical microring resonators" (Cell Reports Methods, 2022), and "Plasmonic Fluor-Enhanced Antigen Arrays for High-Throughput, Serological Studies of SARS-CoV-2" (ACS Infectious Diseases, 2022). Qavi has received funding from the Pandemic PACT for "Development of Optofluidic Resonators for Filoviral Detection" (2022–2026), supporting his physician-scientist career development. His scholarship has accumulated over 2,000 citations, advancing optical biosensing technologies and clinical laboratory practices.