An electronic-based ELISA combined with microfluidics

Our aim is to develop a low-cost real-time protein detection device to continuously monitor cytokines during in-vitro culture that could eventually expand in clinical practice. We will do this by exploiting discrete electronic components as chemical sensors that are compatible with unique microfluidic chips for minimising the overall cost of the device in combination with small size enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) chambers that minimise antibody requirements. We aspire achieving this by adapting well established manufacturing techniques, currently employed in fabricating printed-circuit boards (PCBs), that could effortlessly render bespoke functionalised electrodes coupled with um-scale fluidic channels/chambers.

The interdisciplinary work proposed within this program seeks adapting existing manufacturing processes, currently used in mass-producing printed circuit boards, for developing bespoke, disposable diagnostics. As this technology will be clinically applicable in a large variety of diseases, the anticipated impact expands across three main areas: (1) Societal (2) Economic (3)Academic.

Societal: The proposed research will develop a platform technology for low cost diagnostics and will have wide societal benefits in terms of public health. The proposed research will be focus on tuberculosis diagnosis - although only one aspect of tuberculosis control it is perhaps the most important. Currently there are several unmet needs in TB diagnosis, which include rapidity of diagnosis, affordability, simplicity and the ability to generate same-day results preferably at point-of-care. At present a return visit is required to access test results and as a result, time to treatment is prolonged and default rates are significant. A good diagnostic tool that can provide results rapidly will be invaluable in our ability to control this disease, especially in low resource settings. In terms of use, the technology can be utilised to provide reliable proteomic algorithms as well as experimental redundancy for minimising false positive results. In addition, when compared to conventional ELISA, significantly smaller sample volumes are required. These attributes are thus essential for developing a more reliable medical intervention without compromising the overall cost and discomfort of patients in intensive care units.

Economic: The main beneficiaries of the research stand to be industrial manufacturers of medical devices, and our industrial partner Newbury Electronics. By utilizing well-established PCB fabrication techniques, the research outputs could represent significant growth opportunities for Newbury Electronics by extending their portfolio into the diagnostics sector (valued at $13.8bn in 2011) and capturing potential high growth in the UK. The proposed research provides an alternative paradigm in manufacturing high-throughput, reliable yet low-cost diagnostic platforms and is thus anticipated that it will attract substantial interest world-wide. Multi-billion global businesses such as Life Sciences and Roche have invested substantially in CMOS technologies, as a means to develop advanced medical devices. Nonetheless, as discussed in this proposal, this approach only offers benefits when an extremely high density of sensing sites is required (as in DNA-sequencing), which is not the case for POC diagnostics. Aside from pharmaceutical and medical device sectors, we see potential impact in bio-defense and environmental monitoring.
Bringing in new potential collaborations, commercial outcomes and through effective dissemination of this work we will strengthen the UK's academic and commercial position. We have had enquiries from GlaxoSmithKline, who have expresses interest in exploiting this technology, particularly in drug toxicology assays and other clinicians who are interested in pursuing clinical outcomes of this type of technology.

Academic: By combining the multi-disciplinary strengths of our collaborators and the host research groups we aim to:
- Innovate using the ingredients from different disciplines for enhancing the knowledge economy.
- Develop end-to-end infrastructure from a range of technologies, design methodologies and clinical applications.
- Cultivate inter-disciplinary IP for accelerating the commercialization of the proposed technology.
- Foster the training of highly skilled researchers.