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The Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati has developed a point-of-care testing device that can detect diabetic retinopathy at an early stage, without the need for invasive testing. This device has been developed in collaboration with Shri Sankaradeva Nethralaya, Guwahati.
Diabetic retinopathy is a serious non-communicable disease in India, with a conservative estimate that 11 – 20 million Indians will suffer from this malady by 2025. It is caused by abnormal growth in the retinal blood vessels in people with diabetes, and it is usually worsened when the patient is on insulin for diabetic treatment.
Descriptions and results of their testing device have been recently published in the ACS journal, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. The paper has been authored by Prof. Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, Prof, Department of Chemical Engineering and Head of Center for Nanotechnology, and his students, Surjendu Maity, Subhradip Ghosh, Tamanna Bhuyan, at IIT Guwahati. The other author and collaborator Dr. Dipankar Das, a Senior Consultant and practicing Ophthalmologist, is the Head of the Department of Ocular Pathology and Uvea in Shri Sankaradeva Nethralaya, Guwahati.
The team has also filed an Indian patent for this idea and device. The research is funded by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Indian Council of Medical Research and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
ÂCurrently, the first step in the test for diabetic retinopathy is an invasive eye exam, in which the eyes are dilated and the ophthalmologist inspects the eye, explains Dr. Bandyopadhyay. As people who have had eye examination know, this is inconvenient, with blurry vision for a long time after examination. Advanced detection methods such as optical coherence tomography, fluorescein angiography, detection of exudates in retina, and image analysis are complicated and require skilled operators and can show the malady only after it has progressed enough to be detected.
The research team wondered if there was a simple test such as a blood or urine test, that can detect retinopathy even before symptoms are seen in the eye. This induced the researchers to look for appropriate biomarkers of retinopathy  chemicals that are found in body fluids that can indicate impending or ongoing retinopathy, a statement issued by IIT, Guwahati said.
The researchers found that Ã-2-microglobulin (B2M), a protein found in tears and urine, is a reliable indicator for retinopathy. Armed with this knowledge, they set out to develop a device that can detect this protein in these body fluids.
The team developed a device in which the sensing element was an antibody to B2M that was immobilised on gold particles a hundred thousand times smaller than the width of the human hair. When the nanogold-laden antibody came in contact with B2M, there was a colour change.
ÂWe designed a microfluidic system, in which, the body fluid  tear or urine  was drawn into very thin tubes or capillaries, where they came in contact with the gold-antibody nanoparticles, and the change in colour was assessed to detect B2MÂ, explains the lead researcher. Their prototype microfluidic analyser produced good results with reliable and sensitive detection of B2M, offering promise for design of hand-held, easy to operate detectors for diabetic retinopathy, much like the popular glucometers for diabetes itself.
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