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Designed to detect proinflammatory biomarkers without requiring blood from a patient, the patch was developed by researchers at Swansea University in Wales and the Polytechnic of Porto School of Engineering (ISEP) in Portugal.
Comprised of arrays of tiny needles that are designed to break the skin barrier in a minimally-invasive manner, the patch can monitor biomarkers in skin interstitial fluid (ISF).
“The skin is the largest organ in the body – it contains more ISF than the total volume of blood. This fluid is an ultrafiltrate of blood and holds biomarkers that complement other biofluids such as sweat, saliva, and urine. It can be sampled in a minimally invasive manner and used either for point-of-care testing or real-time using microneedle devices,” said researcher Dr Sanjiv Sharma, who previously developed a microneedle patch to deliver Covid-19 vaccines.
“The devices we developed are scalable, and the resulting sensor has a short measurement time (six minutes), with high accuracy and a low limit of detection. This new diagnostic tool, for screening of inflammatory biomarkers in point-of-care testing, will see the skin act as a window to the body and vital organs such as the brain.”
The patches could be self-administered at GP practices or even at home and could “change the landscape of early neurodegenerative disease detection”, the researchers said.
Felismina Moreira, co-author of the work at ISEP, said: “Biomark ISEP Porto have pioneered applications of molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) and extended them to different healthcare applications.
“Together with Swansea's expertise in transdermal diagnostics we have demonstrated that the MIPs, together with the microneedle arrays, offer a fantastic platform for the development of point-of-care devices for bloodless testing. These can be extended to diagnostics for cardiovascular, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.”
Swansea University is working with research partners in the UK, Portugal, France and Japan to further the field of transdermal diagnostics and create diagnostic devices for a variety of healthcare applications.
The work was published by the American Chemical Society.
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