The solution
Based on the market needs, two main required features were clearly identified:
- In order to improve the current WB technique which is very labour‐intensive, time consuming and difficult to standardise, the tool should be robust, easy‐to‐use and enable unambiguous interpretation of test results.
- To avoid the need of two different tests to get a diagnosis and allow chronic infections to be detected, new antigens, that have been reported in the literature in the last years but have not reach clinical use, should be included.
With these premises in mind and with the input of all the partners, the HILYSENS consortium came to the following solution:
A highly‐sensitive, specific and robust diagnostic tool for Lyme Disease, easy to use and interpret by frontline physicians and clinical laboratories that will become a standard detection tool, rising awareness of this disease among European clinicians and permitting accurate quantification of the increasing disease incidence in order to carry out prevention campaigns before the disease becomes epidemic.
Quantum dots, State-of-the-art fluorescent nanoparticles used in HILYSENS
The solution lays on the lab‐on‐a‐chip technology to permit robust and automatic sample processing and detection in a single step, combined with very specific antigenic proteins and peptides that will be detected by fluorescent nanoparticles due to its excellent properties in terms of enhanced signal to background detection and performance in multiplexed assays. The marriage of both technologies is highly innovative and will provide outstanding features in terms of sensitivity and assay robustness addressing therefore the gaps of existing assays.
