Development grant
Akubio Ltd of Cambridge has won a £826,000 government grant towards the development of a portable and low cost rapid response device, for diagnosing diseases such as malaria and meningitis. The money was awarded under the Department of Trade and Industry’s Technology Programme.
The device is based on a quartz crystal element similar to those in wristwatches and is powered by standard batteries.
The device’s sensor detects specific molecules within a sample, using miniaturised echo sounder acoustic technology to determine the presence of marker proteins for a particular disease, or disease causing pathogens, including avian flu, meningitis, E. coli infections, malaria, heart attack, stroke and some cancers.
In contrast, most existing diagnostic devices require the addition of expensive reagents to a sample to enable disease detection
Akubio's Chief Scientist Dr Matthew Cooper said, “Building on our first commercial product, this funding will accelerate our development programme for the portable device and its companion products.”
“Our work is a proprietary application combining the very latest in nanotechnology with the mass-produced quartz crystal resonator that is used in everyday appliances.”
Akubio's development partners are the University of Cambridge and Melton Mowbray-based magnetic particle firm Reagent Mine Ltd.
The project aims to develop biosensor chips and hardware for real-time healthcare monitoring and for environmental monitoring. It brings together three technologies, Reagent Mine's technique for the pre-concentration of analytes from complex biological samples on magnetic beads and nanoparticles; Cambridge University’s novel polymeric biocompatible surface coatings; and Akubio's acoustic detection methodology.
An integrated magnetic pre-concentration module will be fabricated for use in Akubio's desktop instrumentation. This will ultimately lead to a portable, hand-held device
The Technology Programme was launched in 2004, to invest directly in new and emerging technologies, and has been designed to help businesses work collaboratively with each other or with academic partners. Over the period 2005-2008, £370 million is available under the programme.
Contact:
Ian Campbell
Business Development Director
Akubio
[email protected]
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