A single diagnostic device will soon detect multiple disease markers at once, using gene editing tools and catalytic nanoparticles to spot tiny traces of noncoding RNA and proteins in a patient sample. Current diagnostic tests often detect only one biomarker at a time, or lack the sensitivity to catch disease early. This project builds a platform called multiD that couples the researcher’s own advances in catalytic nanoparticle technology with CRISPR-based gene editing to simultaneously detect different classes of molecules. A second technology, NEXTDx, pushes sensitivity further to identify nucleic acid patterns. The work also develops new catalytic nanoparticles and combines imaging, computational modelling, and data science to understand how these materials work from the atomic level upward. If successful, these platforms could be deployed at the point of care—a GP’s surgery, a pharmacy, or a patient’s home—and feed data into a digital twin of the patient, enabling real-time monitoring and personalised treatment pathways. The fundamental science component—understanding nanoparticle behaviour and molecular interactions at atomic scale—could also inform future biosensing designs beyond diagnostics, such as environmental monitoring or food safety testing.
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Next generation disease detection requires transformative biosensing technologies that are robust, highly sensitive, based on multiple biomarkers, and deployable at the point of care. In bioSense, I propose to meet these needs by pursuing a research programme that simultaneously detects multiple biomarkers ('multiplexed') with extremely high sensitivity ('ultrasensitive'), and develops these multiplexed ultrasensitive diagnostic platforms into point of care devices that have the potential to integrate into online care pathways and enable a patient-centric digital twin. The transformative technological platforms take inspiration from biology to usher in a new era of disease diagnosis. bioSense pursues this ambitious aim through a three-pronged work programme: First, bioSense couples my seminal advances in catalytic nanoparticle technology together with leading-edge developments in gene editing to develop a diagnostic device for the simultaneous detection of noncoding RNA and proteins, a technology I term multiD. Second, bioSense pioneers technology for ultrasensitive detection of nucleic acid patterns, termed NEXTDx. Enhancing multiD and NEXTDx is the development of new catalytic nanoparticles, and underpinning state of the art methodologies including novel imaging technologies developed in-house, hierarchical characterization from atom-level upward, atomistic and coarse-grained computational modelling, and cutting-edge data science approaches that together enable fundamental scientific discoveries and translational outcomes. Collectively, bioSense unlocks the potential of ultrasensitive biosensing for broad clinical and societal impact.
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