Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
TÜBİTAK - AB COST Projesi , 2023 - 2026
Chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is an important public health problem all over the world, not only affects the quality of life but also progresses rapidly to end-stage renal failure and its late diagnosis seriously threatens health budgets with high-cost dialysis and kidney transplant treatments. Therefore, economical and user-friendly sensor systems for rapid detection of CKD are essential, which can even be integrated into clothing that will allow miniaturization and provide patient welfare. Such point-of-care (POC) platforms have become very beneficial for on-site analysis, providing faster results compared to laboratory-based tests without requiring qualified personnel. Today, the focus of health care has now shifted from hospital-based treatment to home-based treatment, so systems that can be integrated directly on the patient's clothing combined with a wireless connection are crucial. Wearable technologies enable the detection of biomarkers of many important diseases non-invasively, improving the patient's life quality.
As a partner from Turkey, we will participate in the diagnostic part of the proposal process within the scope of Cost Action “CA 21165”. In this project, two new types of immunosensor systems (electrochemical and optical/spot-based) will be developed for targeted and multiple analysis, allowing early diagnosis of CKD and monitoring the treatment process: (1) Electrochemical sensor systems where new functional polymers are coated on an electroactive surface, such as ITO, ITO-coated PET, etc., where each modification step such as coating, immobilization, bonding (due to the optical properties of the polymeric matrix such as fluorescence) can also be observed through a microscope. (2) "Dot-blot" systems based on the formation of “freestanding” polymer films, preparing them as spots, immobilizing the relevant antibodies to construct an optical sensor platform, and analyzing the difference in optical signals that will be proportional to the amount of analytes, depending on the binding of the target biomarkers for the diagnosis of CKD. A color analysis program such as Image J will be used.
Therefore, new materials will be designed to fabricate high performance sensing systems, while stabilizing antibodies effectively and without adversely affecting their recognition properties. The spiro-structured polymers are planned to be used in this project for the first time for sensor surface modification. They impart superior optical/electronic/electrochemical properties to sensing systems by forming structures containing functional groups and two independent π-conjugate systems. Furthermore, targeted polymers will be designed to form transparent and free-standing thin films, and their potential use as a direct measurement platform in an optical sensor will be investigated and optimized as “Spot-type” disposable test components. Subsequently, biofunctional and selective recognition surfaces will be fabricated by bioconjugation of specific antibodies of CKD biomarkers, KIM-1 and NGAL, to the developed polymers.
Signal formation mechanism will be based on: (1) voltammetry for electrochemical sensors, (2) the principle of measuring fluorescent signals that vary depending on their surface binding properties, for spot tests (dot-blot tests), which will be named as "optical sensors" throughout the project. The potential use of the designed immunosensor platforms in synthetic matrices and their interference effects will also be evaluated.
Here, developing a strategy for the detection of CKD and its integration into wearable electronics via practical sensors that allow targeted PoC analysis is aimed in line with the objectives of the CA21165 action, “Personalized medicine in chronic kidney disease: improved outcome based on Big Data (PerMediK)”. Construction of innovative test systems with up-to-date approaches will be an alternative to the existing tests, thus, it will be possible to obtain new and practical systems. This project, which aims to create a biotechnology-oriented product that can be easily adapted to CKD analysis, will yield important outputs for smart phone-operated biosensing devices.