Allergy test

Nottingham University scientists have scooped a prestigious national award for developing a technique that can test for up to 5,000 different allergens from just one drop of blood.

The new basophil-microarray based allergy assay is the brainchild of researchers at Nottingham University’s schools of pharmacy and biosciences, in collaboration with the Centre for Respiratory Research at Nottingham City Hospital.

Their innovation has won them a Da Vinci award in the Breakthrough Technology category, which comes with a £15,000 prize to use towards furthering their research.

Now in their second year, the Da Vinci Awards, which are run through Loughborough University, recognise collaborative projects that lead to the potential commercialisation of healthcare innovations to save lives and improve services to patients.

The new technology is a lab-based in-vitro test that mimics human allergic reaction.