Exploring the use of nano and quantum sensors for wastewater-based epidemiology
Many of our i-sense team members have received awards or fellowships over the past year - let’s take a closer look at a few of our award updates.
Zyme Biosciences, a team led by Dr Marta Broto Aviles who is an i-sense postdoc in Prof Molly Stevens group at Imperial College London, have made the finals of WE Innovate 2021. The scheme is led by the Imperial Enterprise Lab and provides a platform to showcase the incredible progress being made in women’s entrepreneurship at Imperial – with winning teams receiving a part of a 30K prize fund for their ideas.
Pioneering technology developed by UCL and Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) researchers could transform the ability to accurately interpret HIV test results, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Academics from the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL and AHRI used deep learning (artificial intelligence/AI) algorithms to improve health workers’ ability to diagnose HIV using lateral flow tests in rural South Africa.
New research from the i-sense group at UCL, published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics, addresses the urgent need for more accurate rapid diagnostics for COVID-19 by developing an isothermal test that simultaneously detects two gene targets.
An observational study of patients at UCLH and North Middlesex University Hospital, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, suggests that the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 – sometimes known as the UK or Kent variant – is not associated with more severe illness and death, but appears to lead to higher virus load.
The quantum sensing abilities of nanodiamonds can be used to improve the sensitivity of paper-based diagnostic tests, potentially allowing for earlier detection of diseases such as HIV, according to a study led by researchers in the i-sense McKendry group at UCL.
Antibiotic resistence is a growing global concern and major threat to human health.
The standard method used to detect resistance in bacteria, known as phenotypic antibiotic sensitivity testing, monitors bacterial growth over about 12 – 24 hours and is therefore a slow process. New rapid methods for antibiotic sensitivity testing are urgently needed to improve antibiotic stewardship.