Professor Huang Rongtang of Beijing University of Science and Technology and researcher Jakkrapatr O. The research team led by Baiyokvihit developed a low-cost, portable "Lab-on-a-Chip" that can quantitatively detect cardiac troponin I, creatine kinase isoenzyme and B-type natriuretic peptide, three cardiovascular disease-related biomarkers in 10 minutes with just 10 microliters of blood. It won the honorary award at the final grand prize stage of this year's Health and Longevity Global Competition from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), becoming the only winning team from Taiwan among the nine honorary awards this year.
The National Academy of Medicine recently held the "Global Innovators Summit for Health and Longevity" in Washington, D.C., bringing the seven-year global competition to an end. A total of 147 applications were submitted in the final award stage this year, and 14 winning projects were selected, 9 of which were awarded honorable mentions. The team from Beijing University of Science and Technology stood out with the research project "Publishing Cardiovascular Diagnosis: A Portable Chip Laboratory to Promote Health and Longevity", demonstrating Taiwan's innovative strength in cross-field biomedical technology.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and timely detection is crucial. Traditional high-sensitivity testing mostly relies on hospital central laboratories. Remote areas and areas with insufficient medical resources face the challenge of difficult testing. The team developed a portable chip inspection system with a cost of less than 10 US dollars, providing a new direction for real-time inspection.
The core technology combines magnetic nanoparticle swarms (MNPS) and AlphaFold artificial intelligence-assisted design of aptamer structures to achieve a detection sensitivity of less than 1 pg/mL and reduce dependence on expensive equipment. The team has optimized the manufacturing process, with a production failure rate of 1.8%, and is cooperating with Taipei Mackay Memorial Hospital to test the chip platform. The human research ethics review is still under application. Formal research can only be started after approval. In the future, clinical verification, regulatory applications and mass production development will be promoted.
Huang Rongtang said that being recognized by the international competition that lasted for seven years is an important encouragement for the team to invest in biomedical sensing and innovative medical research and development for a long time. The results also demonstrate Taiwan's biomedical research strength and hope to promote clinical applications and international cooperation to improve people's health and quality of life.
Jakkrapatr O. Baiyokvihit pointed out that the popularization of medical technology is not only the goal of technological innovation, but also the mission of investing in research for human welfare. Taiwan's technological advantages in semiconductors, microelectromechanical systems and photolithography processes will help develop highly sensitive, low-cost chip laboratories with mass production potential.
The research team hopes to develop the chip laboratory into a testing tool connected to smartphones in the future, making cardiovascular health monitoring more convenient and affordable, improving testing accessibility in areas with insufficient medical resources, and bringing opportunities to the aging society.
