S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Guwahati researchers have made it once again. They have developed a point-of-care testing device that can detect diabetic retinopathy at an early stage without the need for invasive testing.
IIT Guwahati researchers have developed this device in association with Shri Sankaradeva Nethralaya in Guwahati. IIT Guwahati researchers were led by Dr. Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Head of Center for Nanotechnology, IIT Guwahati.
IIT Guwahati researchers 2020
Descriptions and results of the testing device of IIT Guwahati researchers have been recently published in the ACS journal, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
The paper has been authored by Prof. Bandyopadhyay and his students, Mr. Surjendu Maity, Mr. Subhradip Ghosh, Ms. 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.
IIT Guwahati researchers have also filed an Indian patent for this idea and device.
The work taken up by IIT Guwahati researchers in association with Shri Sankaradeva Nethralaya got a funding from Ministry of Human Resource Development of Government of India, Indian Council of Medical Research and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of Government of India.
Diabetic retinopathy is a serious non-communicable disease in India, with a conservative estimate that 11 to 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.
Dr Bandhopadhyay who led the team of IIT Guwahati researchers said currently, 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.
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.
IIT Guwahati researchers 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 IIT Guwahati researchers to look for appropriate biomarkers of retinopathy – chemicals that are found in body fluids, that can indicate impending or ongoing retinopathy.
IIT Guwahati researchers found that β-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 of IIT Guwahati researchers 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. We 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 B2M, explained the researcher who led the team of IIT Guwahati researchers.
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.
Microfluidic devices, also known as microchips and lab-on-a-chip, have been eliciting considerable interest in recent years in the design of such detection devices.
The device typically comprises a small plate containing microchannels for guidance of fluids, in this case, a microdrop of urine or tear.
Numerous microfluidic devices have already been developed for the biomarker detection in cancer and other diseases, but there are hitherto, none for detection of diabetic retinopathy.
Work done by IIT Guwahati researchers is among the first in this area and has tremendous practical implications, especially in India, the diabetic capital of the world.
About – IIT Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati established in 1994 has completed 25 years of glorious existence in 2019. At present, the Institute has eleven departments and five inter-disciplinary
The Institute offers a residential campus to 412 faculty members and more than 6,000 students at present. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfill the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its inception in 1994.
The picturesque campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, around 20 kms from the heart of the Guwahati city.
IIT Guwahati is the only academic institution in India that occupied a place among the top 100 world universities – under 50 years of age – ranked by the London-based Times Higher Education (THE) in the year 2014 and continues to maintain its superior position even today in various International Rankings.
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The Institute has been ranked at 6th position in ‘India Overall Rank’ and 350th position under the ‘World Overall Rank’ categories released by Nature Index for the year 2020.
Along with the seven other institutes, IIT Guwahati has been ranked below 500 in the QS World ranking released recently.
IIT Guwahati has retained the 7th rank among the best engineering institutions of the country in the ‘India Rankings 2020’ and also achieved the best ever rank of #7 in the ‘Overall’ category this year (2020) declared by National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) in June 2020.