Medical Device Link.

DESIGN

The United Kingdom (UK) Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Global Watch Missions enable teams of UK experts to visit overseas sites of innovation.¹ A recent one to California examined novel materials, techniques and technologies and the current state of research and development in biosensing technologies. It was co-ordinated by Cranfield Health, formerly the Institute of BioScience and Analytical Technology at Cranfield University. ²

The most widespread existing medical applications of biosensors (compact analytical devices incorporating a biological sensing element coupled with a transducer) are in diabetes management and other areas of diagnostics. Nearly 86% of medical biosensors are blood–glucose determination strips/devices. However, mission co-ordinator Linda Tigwell of Cranfield Health,³ says, “Homeland security issues have raised biosensing up the priority ladder, funding is going into this area, and noninvasive innovations such as electronic nose technology using nanoparticle sensors to identify toxins, viruses and bacteria were of key interest to us on this visit.”

With a cluster of cutting-edge companies and research institutions, California was a natural choice for the week-long mission. Tigwell observed, “Seeing, for example, the novel air-based spore detection system that Universal Detection Technology (www.udetection.com) has evolved, and discussing its potential application demonstrates how biosensing is at the leading edge of homeland security in the United States (US).” The company aims to use the inexpensive system as a front-end monitor for the current Biohazard Detection System (BDS) in US post offices. It will monitor the air continuously for signs of an increase in spore concentration indicative of terrorist attack and only when this is detected will the BDS be triggered to provide confirmatory testing. Thus, it is much more cost-effective.

Mission delegates included representatives from large UK companies as well as those developing revolutionary technologies (see below). In dozens of sessions, they looked at areas such as manufacturing processes, biosensing microsystems development, multiplex labelling technologies, new transducing technologies and sampling. Their conclusions can be read in full in the mission report.⁴ It is clear that despite recent expansion there is plenty of room for growth and technical innovation in the sector, particularly in terms of stability and systems integration.

Current research areas

One area of growing interest is the use of aptamers in sensors, because they can bind tightly and specifically to most proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleotides, as well as small molecules or viruses. Miniaturisation of hardware to deliver samples to a biosensor, particularly for homeland security issues, remains a challenge, but the mission delegates observed that the glucose monitoring market is still growing, spurred on by the introduction of implantable sensors. The key to the future of this market are the reliability of these sensors and user acceptance.

At Sandia National Laboratories (www.sandia.gov) delegates learned about the ChemLab system, which can detect waterborne pathogens, and the organisation’s work on animal pathogen detection (penside diagnostics). Other companies visited included Medtronic MiniMed (www.minimed.com), whose areas of interest now encompass technology such as in vivo sensors to measure bone growth, forces on bones and bone orientation, as well as a subcutaneous glucose sensor with a three-day output. Another company, Pelikan Technologies (www.pelikantechnologies.com) is about to launch a virtually painless next-generation glucose test, which demonstrates the growth potential in this already major market.

Technology partnering

“There certainly was a great deal of interest from our Californian hosts in UK technology allied to homeland security, and the US industry is keen to engage with high-quality UK organisations,” says DTI International Technology Promoter Pete Kitchin, who accompanied the mission team. Companies interested in technology partnering opportunities in biosensing in the US should contact Kitchin.⁵ Tigwell commented, “The attitude in the US is really about researcher working with researcher, if the technologies can talk, then sorting out the business side is not a problem.”

The mission team

The team included representatives of Smart Holograms, Sphere Medical, e2v, Unipath, GlaxoSmithKline and Akubio. It visited Pelikan Technologies, Medtronic MiniMed, Sandia National Laboratories, Caltech, Forza Silicon, CrossFiber, Silicon Kinetics, Universal Detection Technologies, Smiths Detection, Agilent, Applied BioSystems and Affymetrix.