Laser-printable point-of-care sensors for low-cost medical diagnosis and disease monitoring

The research we are proposing here is to develop laser-printed paper-based sensors that will satisfy the criteria of being robust, inexpensive, user-friendly, disposable, and easy to deliver to those patients and members of the public who need to access point-of-care diagnosis. Such sensors would find a ready market within the healthcare and personalised medicine areas, and would prove invaluable when rapid deployment and testing is required in the case of epidemics or worse still, pandemics.

The proposal here is a first feasibility trial to confirm that we can indeed print viable biological material, for application in detection of selected breast-cancer biomarkers. The markers have been identified and validated by our IfLS/FOM team and are used to study the response of patients receiving chemotherapy. This would represent an original diagnostic product developed at the UoS. The work not only involves laser-based printing, and evaluating post-printing the viability of the printed biomaterial, but also investigating techniques for machining and processing of the paper substrate to be used for the sensor.

There are many advantage of this laser-printing approach that are uniquely appropriate for non-contact delivery of biomedical materials, namely:

Flexible processing (patterning and deposition) by simple changes to laser parameters.

Non-contact processing (patterning and printing) which is vital when dealing with biological agents.

No need for a specialist environment thereby eliminating unwarranted processing costs.

The inherent speed of laser printing: a direct analogy can be drawn from current laser printers which can print many sheets per second.

low production costs because of the possibility to mass-produce devices on a roll-to-roll scale.

High feature resolution allowing the creation of compact devices. (Our final goal in a future follow-up proposal will be to print biomaterials in the form of bar-codes for intelligent/active diagnostics readout via smart phone applications).

This laser-printing requires much smaller reagent/analyte volumes compared to current liquid based delivery (printing) methods.

1. Economic impact.

Point-of-care healthcare provision is of fundamental importance whenever costs of diagnosis and treatment time are concerned. For all things medical, the old adage of time is money is universally true. The cost to the employer as well as the patients themselves of having to attend a hospital or clinic are considerable. The cost of staff within the healthcare centre, hospital or doctor's surgery are also extreme, and are set to rise by more than inflation for as far in the future as anyone cares to predict. This, coupled with the ageing and increasing population, leads to an unstoppable demand for medical and heathcare resources, and hence anything that can be brought to bear against this rising financal burden must be welcomed and resourced if deemed realistic and valuable.

While we cannot (yet) predict the net benefit for our proposed research into laser-printable paper-based point-of-care sensors, if they prove feasible, and can be manufactured and used within hospitals, at home and within the wider (particulary urban) community, then benefits to the UK and world economy would be considerable.

2. Societal impacts.

Societal impact is intimately related to the economic benefits that will occur.

All society, within the local community, the UK, or within the third world, where access to even the basic human 'rights' of clean water, medical care and prevention of catastrophic illness should be considered fundamental, stand to benefit from this technology. The ability to perform a diagnostic test that may have been delivered by mail (for example in the UK), from a central distribution point (in urban areas in countries overseas), or even by air-drop (in African or Asian countries) where travel and transport is problematic will bring the possibility of rapid and cheap diagnosis and tracking of diseases that currently decimate whole populations. From the most basic disease of influenza, to the disastrous possibility of the next epidemic within an already deprived and mal-nourished population, if you can rapidly and remoetely test and diagnose, then you can save lives. It is perhaps difficult to think of any more direct societal beneift than preserving or increasing life expectancy, and this must be considered one of the most important societal benefits.

In one sentence, the availabily of personalised point-of-care diagnostic sensors could revolutionise medical treatment.