Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Our team has developed new technology that will allow the rapid detection of blood-borne disease markers, or allow monitoring drug concentrations during treatment. Our affordable, portable prototype apparatus is based on optical detection, using recent innovations to increase sensitivity. Our innovations will allow the detection using small volumes of blood, such that the method is non-invasive. The technology is readily adaptable to detection of a large number of approved biomarkers and can be applied to monitoring the blood concentrations of specific drugs. This project entails the development of detection protocols for blood-borne molecules, related to cancer therapy. The focus will be on the detection of prostate cancer, and on monitoring the course of treatment of childhood amyloid lymphoblastic leukemia. The technology developers will collaboratively adapt the detection assays to the current needs and clinical reality of clinicians from major health centers in Montreal. The assays will be rapidly integrated into clinical environments for validation. Our team is committed to the commercial development of this technology.