According to the World Health Organisation, more than 140 million people across 70 countries drink water containing arsenic above safe levels. Professor Joanne Santini, from UCL’s Department of Structural & Molecular Biology, has come up with a solution: a handheld sensor to quickly measure arsenic levels.
In collaboration with Imperial, the sensor Joanne’s team have developed produces an immediate arsenic reading, at a cost of less than $1 per test. This makes it suitable for testing in rural areas in low-middle income countries, where the problem of arsenic poisoning from water is greatest.
UCL Innovation & Enterprise helped Joanne and her team secure knowledge exchange funding, so they could visit arsenic affected areas in Bangladesh. A UCL spinout, Bio Nano Consulting, has now patented the sensor design and, using a Smart Award from Innovate UK, created a prototype. The new sensor, which resembles the blood glucose meters used by diabetics, produces a digital reading of the arsenic level in just one minute.
Commenting on this game-changing product, Universities and Science Minister Sam Gyimah said: “This sensor to detect harmful levels of water contamination will make a huge difference across developing nations, potentially saving millions of lives.”
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Read the full story on the UCL Innovation & Enterprise website
Other links
Simple arsenic sensor could save lives
UCL Department of Structural & Molecular Biology
Research paper from the Journal of Water & Health about the sensor project