Researchers are developing early detection technology for Type 1 Diabetes that can accurately predict if a child is at risk of the chronic disease.There is at present, no early test for Type 1 diabetes and by the time someone is diagnosed, about 70 per cent of their critical insulin-producing cells have been destroyed.
The Australian researchers from RMIT University and University of Sydney hope their detection kit could one day be used as a standard test for newborns, catching the disease in its earliest stages and enabling the development of treatments to delay or even prevent its onset.
Professor Vipul Bansal, Director of the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility at RMIT, said the collaboration combined lab-on-a-chip technologies with a breakthrough discovery on insulin-producing beta cells. “The detection kit we're developing is cost-effective and simple to use, requiring no specialist technical knowledge or expensive analysis,” Bansal said.
The next stage is working with the engineers at RMIT’s Micro Nano Research Facility to expand the sensor's capabilities and miniaturise it onto a microfluidic chip about the size of a postage stamp.
The ultimate aim is to be able to slow or prevent the onset of Type 1 Diabetes. The test could also significantly boost the development of therapies to prevent or delay the disease.