The test combines an enhanced test strip with a special cartridge for collecting blood from a finger prick, making it more sensitive and user friendly.
Razieh Salahandish
The new, all-in-one lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) system for detecting hepatitis B antigens aims to solve issues that LFIAs often present, such as detecting small amounts of substances and measuring them accurately.
LFIAs are widely used for rapid diagnostics due to their simplicity and straightforward results and this new system gives promising results, says Razieh Salahandish, an assistant professor in York University's Lassonde School of Engineering and the corresponding author of the study'.
"With this new LFIA system, we're taking a significant step forward in point-of-care testing for by enabling the detection and measurement of proteins and hormones in bodily fluids such as blood.," says Salahandish. "It offers a more sensitive, accurate and user-friendly way to detect the cause of diseases using just a simple finger-prick blood sample. However, further research and development are essential to fully realize its potential and make this technology widely available."
The new test strip design, improved with computer simulations, makes the test much more sensitive by better mixing the sample with test components, lowering the detection limit and doubling its accuracy.
A key innovation of the new design, says Salahandish, is the user-friendly blood collection cartridge. Its two-step rotation mechanism simplifies the process of collecting, processing and applying a finger-prick blood sample to the test strip.
This simplified procedure makes the test potentially suitable for use by non-professionals, including at home.
Salahandish and the research team - Lassonde's Fatemeh Haghayegh, Elnaz Haghani, Alireza Norouziazad, Hamidreza Akbari Ghavamabadi, Shitij Aggarwal, Ryan Orszulik and Sergey N. Krylov, along with Ashissh Raichura of Scanbo Technologies Inc. - found the results to be promising, they have identified several areas for future development.
The team is planning additional work to confirm the LFIA's effectiveness with more samples, ensure it works with different blood samples, improve manufacturing processes, test its stability in various conditions and expand its use to detect other diseases. As well, standardization for mass production while maintaining sensitivity and ease of use is also a key goal.
The study is in press and will be published in the March issue of the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
This story was originally featured in YFile, York University's community newsletter.
