ISLAMABAD: IGNIE-National Technology Fund under ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has planned to develop a portable optical sensor for on-site diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB).
Project Manager Dr. Muhammad Imran Cheema said, The overall goal of the project was to develop an easy to use non-invasive, accurate, sensitive, and label free optical sensor that provides immediate TB diagnosis without the aid of specialized laboratory personnel.
Dr. Imran Cheema said, One approach for TB diagnosis involves the detection of a TB-specific biomarker panel. The biomarkers can be present in blood, clinically developed culture sample, or breath of a patient infected with TB.
Optical sensors leveraging spectroscopy, which are widely used in military and space applications, have a tremendous potential of providing an accurate, sensitive, and real time TB test and sensor will also be easily portable to remote areas with lack of healthcare infrastructure.
Here, we propose to develop a novel optical sensor that can analyze the breath of a patient for rapid and on-site TB diagnosis.
CEO Ignite Yusuf Hussain said, we aim to brought strategic shift in the direction of the fund towards creating a knowledge economy by funding startups which can ignite innovation in different fields.