SiM20 Posters

Sensors in Medicine 2020 34 ENGINEERING OF A NEW SCREENING TEST FOR EARLY PREDICTION OF PRETERM BIRTH Loukia Petrou 1 , Sung Hye Kim 2 , Vasso Terzidou 2 , Sylvain Ladame 1 1 Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London 2 Parturition Research Group, Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London Born too soon - A growing problem 1 ENGINEERING PEPTIDE NUCLEIC ACID PROBES PRETERM BIRTH Biomarkers – microRNA in Preterm Birth + Circulate in blood + High sensitivity and specificity (microRNA hsa- miR-150-5p AUC=0.87) 2 − Low natural abundance − High sequence homology Two functionalised Peptide Nucleic Acids (PNAs) with non-fluorescent molecules hybridise to specific microRNA biomarker to catalyse a fluorescent reaction. More than 1 in 10 babies are born prematurely 15 million Preterm births every YEAR resulting in 1 million deaths More than ¾ Could have been prevented with currently available treatment POINT OF CARE SCREENING TOOL - Aim Screening tool for all pregnant women to identify those at risk from as early as 12 th week of pregnancy Involves a simple blood sample Fluorescence at test lines along the lateral flow assay (LFA) indicate presence of dysregulated microRNA biomarkers Functionalised Peptide Nucleic Acids as sensors • Able to detect microRNAs on paper without the need for amplification or sample pre-processing • Compatible with low-cost population-wide screening • Single nucleotide specificity The control line does not require microRNA as the two PNAs are complimentary to each other. miR-150-5p test line PNAs Control line PNAs