Development of a nappy for the detection of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) in the urine of neonates

Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection occurs following in-utero transmission of virus from mother to foetus. In the UK it is estimated that 1-4 babies in every 200 will be born with congenital CMV, which is the most common cause of non-genetic sensory neural hearing loss. One in ten neonates with congenital CMV will have symptoms at birth including: hepatosplemomegally, thrombocytopaenia, heart defects and intracranial calcification. The remainder of neonates will be asymptomatic but of these, 10% will develop long-term sequelae, the most common of which is sensory neural hearing loss.

In the UK, the current standard of care is to consider treatment of neonates with congenital CMV and neurological symptoms (which includes hearing loss) within the first month of life. Prompt diagnosis is therefore essential for the window of treatment not to be missed. As neonates are typically discharged soon after birth, a rapid test would enable infection to be easily identified before discharge, enabling further investigations to be carried out in hospital.

Current tests for CMV use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to analyse bodily fluids of symptomatic neonates, which can take 1-3 days and misses 90% of (asymptomatic) infected newborns. If a cheap and simple to use assay can be developed, it will revolutionise how we detect congenital CMV infections, allowing every neonate to be screened. As more evidence accumulates for the treatment of asymptomatic neonates and infants it is possible that CMV may be added to the newborn screening programme but the current methods of diagnosis may be cost-prohibitive.

There are numerous beneficiaries of this Advanced Biomedical Materials CDT. Firstly and of short term impact are the PhD students themselves. They will receive extensive research specific and professional/transferable skills training throughout the 4 years of the programme. They will have access to state of the art facilties and world leading academics, industry and clinicians. The training and potential placements are designed to maximise the impact of their research in terms of dissemination and movement of their research along the translation pathway.

Longer term benefits are that this distinct cohort will become the future UK Biomedical Materials leaders and be able to use their bespoke training and network within the cohort to collaborate on future worldwide funding opportunities and drive UK research in this area.

UK and international academics will benefit as they will gain the next generation of highly skilled postdoctoral researchers with knowledge and expertise not only in their specific research area but of industry, regulatory and clinical aspects.

UK and international industry will benefit - in the short term they will gain academic based research to further develop products and in the longer term have a pool of highly skilled graduates.

Clinicians will benefit from collaborative research and also the development of new and novel products to enhance the treatment of a variety of trauma and disease based needs from biomaterials.

The public will benefit as end users as patients that will have their quality of life improved from the products developed in the CDT and will be educated in novel technologies and materials to repair the human body. The UK economy will benefit from the reduced healthcare costs associated with the new and improved medical products developed in this CDT and subsequently from the trained graduates. The UK economy will also benefit from the increased revenue from medical sales products from the UK industrial partners we will be working with.

The impact of this CDT will be realised by direct academic, clinical and industrial engagement with the students allowing efficient and state of the at training and fast translation of developing products. Students will also be trained in knowledge exchange and will use these skills to disseminate their research to, and liaise with, the key stakeholders - the academic, industrial, clinical and public sectors. We will ensure widening participation routes are addressed in this CDT in order to include equality and diversity not only in our initial CDT student cohort but in future researcher generations to come.