Professor Vipul Bansal is the Director of Sir Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility and Group Leader of the RMIT NanoBiotechnology Research Laboratory. He leads a trans-disciplinary team of ~25 researchers working in synergy across the domains of chemistry, biology and engineering to address global environmental and health challenges. The team has a strong focus on developing platform sensor technologies that are readily applicable for point-of-care detection of various food-related, environmental and clinical problems. The team achieves this by producing next-generation of nanomaterials with unique properties, and using these materials in an innovative manner for early detection of various target analytes. Examples include malaria sensor (funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation); a sensor for diabetes prediction (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation & Helmsley Trust USA); vaginal infection sensor (Australian Center for HIV and Hepatitis); and a wearable UV sensor technology for monitoring solar exposure. Some of these diagnostic technologies are already under human clinical trial, for instance real-time monitoring of CAR-T cell cancer immunotherapies inside the body using novel biomedical imaging agents (ARC & Global Innovation Linkages). Our work is guided by our strong belief – early detection is the key to successful management of problems, be it environmental or clinical.