Early warning point of care diagnostics for type 2 diabetes

Chemically induced light emission technology has been coupled to engineered nanoscale structures to create a unique type of sensor which is so sensitive and so specific that it will be able to measure extremely low levels of disease markers in a blood sample. The markers of interest are those associated with Type 2 diabetes. The two diagnostic platforms will allow clinicians to determine whether a patient is likely to develop Type 2 diabetes within the next 5 years of life. Point of care diagnostic system will be developed in the future to allow a user to do this at home, at a pharmacist or under the supevision of their doctor.

The key to the technology is the nanostructure and composition of the biosensing material. The academic and industrial project team will produce both a market ready well plate technology and point of care prototypes using their existing resources and know how.

The technology has the potential to be configured to measure panels of disease markers within a single blood spot sample, which has the potential to measure the severity of disease and determine how far the disease has progressed.

The high sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic will allow early diagnosis of disease, which will lead to improved patient outcomes.

Other applications include environmental, agriculture, food monitoring and anti-counterfeit tests.