Blood spot

Approaching a million people in the UK are being treated with the oral anticoagulant Warfarin to reduce the risk of stroke and other blood clot related conditions. An easy to use nanotechnology-based disposable sensor is being developed that could ensure their treatment regime is effective or detect incipient clots from just a tiny pinprick sample of blood.

Prof Rhodri Williams, a specialist in rheology and fluid mechanics in

school of engineering, is leading the NHS,

and

-funded project to develop the device, which will use zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire transducers. His team has been working in the field of blood-clot detection for a number of years and has previously established the Clinical Haemorheology Laboratory in Morriston, just outside Swansea.

'The problem with current methods is that there are no established techniques that will detect clots at such an early stage as ours, and none of them interrogate the microstructure of the clot,' said Williams.