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University of Bolton scientists have won funding for a three-year project to develop a new, miniaturised medical technology that could bring earlier diagnosis of diseases like breast cancer and detection of viruses like SARS.

The University has won a research and knowledge transfer grant awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council with a total budget of £1.1million.

Professor Jack Luo will lead a team of researchers who come from the University of Bolton, the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge and the Physics Department, University of Manchester. Together they will work to develop the new, miniaturised diagnostic technology.

The team aim to develop micro-biosensors, so small and so sensitive they can detect and identify tiny abnormalities in blood at a very early-stage or the slightest trace of a virus. Just tens of micrometres in size, micro-biosensors are much thinner than a human hair, they are invisible to the human eye.

Said Jack Luo, Professor of Microelectromechanical Systems at the University of Bolton: 'Miniaturising medical diagnosis technology will bring advances in disease diagnosis as it lets medical practitioners detect diseases at an earlier stage than is currently possible. It may even be possible for ordinary people to detect potential diseases by themselves, just as they can measure their own blood pressure today.

'The micro-biosensors are a nano-scale microbalance that measure any change induced on the surface of the device, down to a few picogrammes. By combining with specific molecule-recognition system related to diseases, such as antibody-antigen, or with a specific coating which will absorb certain chemicals, the biosensor can detect and identify biochemicals in the body in the tiniest quantities, so that it diagnoses diseases at an early stage, before a macro symptom appears.

'This means, for instance, breast cancer treatments could be less invasive as the cancer cells' presence would be detected at an earlier stage.'

Pictured is Professor Jack Luo.