Future of Diagnostics

In the Future of Diagnostics - FUDIS co-innovation ecosystem several Finnish research organizations and the most relevant companies working in the field of in vitro diagnostics join forces to develop new technology platforms, materials, manufacturing, devices and biomarkers for point-of-care diagnostics. The new technologies and products developed answer to the growing need of fast, sensitive and cost-effective diagnostic tools in the point-of-care (POC) setting. In the project, the technologies are applied for example to the development of a rapid test for COVID-19 diagnosis.

Lateral flow based diagnostic assays (LFA) are very widely used and there is still a strong interest towards them because they are easy to use, inexpensive and fast. However, LFAs with higher sensitivity and accuracy as well as quantitative. LFAs need to be developed, which will be one of goals of this project. In addition, multiplexing in LFAs is required. In this project, this can be achieved by detecting multiple analytes on the same LF strip with different labels or with additional functionalities, such as electrochemical sensors on the strip, to simultaneously detect additional analytes e.g. small molecules in the sample. Diagnostics tests that are based on nucleic acid amplification, such as many COVID-19 tests, are often performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In FUDIS, a sensitive digital PCR application, suitable for POC environment is developed. The testing of the developed platforms is facilitated by a common process for the acquirement of clinical samples from biobpanks.

As an outcome FUDIS provides tools to diagnostic needs in current COVID-19 and future pandemic situations as well as to the requirements in every day healthcare. The close collaboration between research organizations and companies within the consortium enables the flexible and fast commercialization of the innovations.