MicroActive

Currently many common diseases require that samples are sent to remote labs for diagnosis. This is costly, time consuming, increases patient anxiety and delays the start of treatment. MicroActive will make it feasible to carry out automatic, accurate diagnosis at the local doctor's office. MicroActive will achieve this by using bio-marker mRNA detection. Compared to commonly used approaches (e.g. PCR amplification and immunoassay methods), mRNA detection avoids false positive results and has a high sensitivity. This approach is currently used to detect cervical pre-cancer, cancer, STDs and a range of respiratory diseases, to mention a few. In addition, recent advances in the field of molecular biology and high throughput technologies are generating hundreds of potential biomarkers every day.

MicroActivee will:

• Develop an integrated system based on microtechnology and biotechnology for automated diagnosis of a wide range of diseases.The system will analyze biological samples and be specifically designed for use in primary health care.
• Validate the sensitivity of the system using cytological samples from women at risk of developing cervical cancer (the second most common female cancer) as test cases. Results from the new, automated system will be compared with gold standard hospital lab tests for human papilloma viruses (HPV).
• Prepare for industrial production of the system.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.sintef.no/microactive

Project co-ordinator:
SINTEF, (NO)

Partners:

• NorChip AS (NO)
• Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GMbH (DE)
• IMTEK, University of Freiburg (DE)
• BioFluidix GmbH (DE)
• The Coombe Lying-in Hospital (IE)

Timetable: from 12/05 – to 11/08

Total cost: € 2.779.600

EC funding: € 1.600.000

Instrument: STREP

Project Identifier: IST-2005-017319

Source: FP6 eHealth Portfolio of Projects