Aureum Diagnostics proposes to develop a ground-breaking point of care diagnostic assay for early and reliable diagnosis of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The project will use Aureum's proprietary advanced high-sensitivity, rapid, low cost and easy to use biosensor platform to measure key biomarkers of TBI in blood. TBI is an emerging market in diagnostic testing, this is because around the world healthcare infrastructure is improving and awareness of the potential downstream impacts of poorly diagnosed TBI are growing. Sporting activity (professional or amateur), traffic accidents, domestic partner violence and military activity all give rise to TBI and because of this, interest in the condition and its ongoing effects is increasing. In addition, the current diagnostic tests do not cover individuals less than 18 years of age and due to the prevalence of mild TBI/head knocks in junior sports, a pitch side test is much in demand. Finally, much of current testing for TBI requires use of imaging technologies such as CT and MRI scanning which are expensive and slow with milder TBI/concussion harder to measure in this way. At this point, the advantages of point of care testing with low-cost strips and reader and a quick time to result become obvious. This project will develop a technology platform which includes a low-cost reader and low-cost test-strips capable of measuring TBI biomarkers straight from blood at the point of need. In addition, Aureum will expand the commonly used two biomarker panel for TBI to a three marker panel. This will mean the test covers under 18s too and will significantly disrupt the market meaning that a point of need test for use at sporting, social and traffic events with a low cost of acquisition becomes available. Current product offerings in this space typically have a reader cost of £5-10,000 per instrument and a cartridge cost of £44 per test. Aureum's replacement technology approach reduces this to £50 per reader instrument and 50 pence per test strip. As can be seen, this will lead to a proliferation of testing for TBI in the community and reducing burden on the established diagnostic pathway, particularly expensive imaging technologies such as CT and MRI.

To develop next generation sensors which allow low cost and easy to use diagnostic products to be realised, it is necessary to understand the surface properties of the sensor strips in high detail. This is because it is necessary to attach biological molecules to the sensor surface in order to detect a target in a sample. For example, enzymes, antibodies and DNA molecules can be attached to the sensor strip in order to detect biomarkers from a clinical samples. At present, the development of biosensors on thin film gold and carbon test strips is hindered by our ability to successfully attach biological molecules to the surface. Furthermore, ensuring the surface is clean and ready to accept the biological molecules is a second challenge which underpins this research effort. This project will focus on developing the fundamental understanding of the low cost sensor surfaces through measuring their roughness and composition and then investigating methods to clean the surfaces which are compatible with high volume manufacturing and finally examine chemical methods for attaching biological molecules to the sensor surface. At the end off the project, the company will have gained a lot of knowledge in the areas of sensor cleaning and biomolecule attachment which it can apply to the new diagnostic products which it intends to create.