Home kidney disease monitoring with £10 device

Kidney dysfunction places suffers at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and acute kidney injury. Every day, 19 people in the UK are diagnosed with kidney failure, with dialysis treatment for each of those awaiting a transplant costing the NHS over £25,000 per year. As a whole, kidney disease currently costs the NHS over £1.4 billion - more than breast, lung, colon and skin cancer combined.

At present, the progress of kidney conditions is monitored through regular testing of urine. However, these tests can’t be carried out at the point of care - instead, the sample must be sent to a laboratory by a GP or nurse, with a wait of several days for the results.

Created by Bio Nano Consulting, a company jointly owned by Imperial College London and University College London, the new device – called quantitative electrochemical lateral flow assay (QELFA) – uses nanoparticles to determine the exact amount of protein in a patient’s urine. The device is dipped into a urine sample, giving a result as an exact number.