Accessible testing is key to addressing America’s lead crisis: New solutions that are compact, easy to use, and affordable can facilitate expanded childhood lead exposure testing and early intervention. That means next-generation point-of-care blood lead tests will need to be easy for non-experts to use in point-of-care settings. SensiLead, one of five Phase 1 winners that advanced to Phase 2 of the Lead Detect Prize, is applying electrochemistry to detect lead, paired with a mobile app that would allow users to test and track results.
Through August 2024, the Phase 2 teams participated in a virtual accelerator designed to help them advance their point-of-care blood lead detection solutions. The goal of the multiphase Lead Detect Prize is to enhance the detection of low levels of lead exposure through blood tests administered at the point of care.
We spoke with Elena Boselli, Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, Chicago from SensiLead about the team’s technology, the challenges and advantages of building a seamless blood lead detection solution, and the next steps for her team.
How did you find out about the Lead Detect Prize? What motivated you to enter?
It was my principal investigator, one of the members of my team, who suggested we should try to tackle this challenge because he knew that my passion and my doctoral research was focused on heavy metal detection. I’ve always been passionate about not basic science, but science with an impact on the lives of people and the practical application of it.
It has been a unique opportunity. The purpose was to shorten the time for new technologies to bridge this gap that still exists despite all the years of research in lead detection. But it’s still an unsolved challenge.
What do you find most inspiring or challenging about lead detection?
There are two interrelated things. I am inspired by the impact this new technology can have on people’s lives, especially on the future of children, given the importance and the danger posed by lead levels in the human body. I find all the aspects that are involved in transitioning an idea from a research lab to the outside world very challenging; particularly making it usable not only by experts or lab technicians, but everybody. I’m hopeful.
Tell us about the technology or solution you are working on. How will it improve lead detection?
Our method uses electrochemical techniques. It consists of an electronic reader and a sensor chip that can be plugged into the electronic reader, takes a few drops of blood, and in a matter of about 15-20 minutes can give you the results directly on an app that we envision could pair with the system.
The most comparable or familiar for the user could be a glucometer. The advantages that we see in our technology is that it can work with very low volume of samples. By pairing it with an app, we are working to overcome all the different challenges and the aspects of making it usable by non-trained users. Widespread adoption of this app would be key to this strategy.
What have you learned about lead detection in children since starting the challenge?
We’ve learned the aspects that are involved in the clinical workflow and especially the specifics of working with children. Even though I was already very passionate and knowledgeable about the topic, there’s always different information to learn through reading from articles, news, or papers and hearing from people’s experiences.
What has been the most valuable part of the accelerator so far?
The discussions and workshops with all the subject matter experts, especially for all the components of the areas that we were not that familiar with. Most importantly, the clinical workflow process from the public health experts. We know that everybody developing medical devices or technology has to face the regulatory components. I have read about the guidelines, but I felt like I learned more reliable and targeted information when I heard from the experts. It helped us to evaluate all the aspects of our original ideas and how it has changed throughout the phases of the prize.
Additionally, it has been very valuable to see the different user environments in which the technology can be helpful. Not only in clinical settings, but also in non-clinical settings; for example, in educational systems. Some of the public health policies require blood lead level estimation before enrolling children in early childhood programs and schools; given that lead can be found in very young children, it could be impactful to have this technology in schools to help identify lead in the blood quicker.
What role do laboratory standards play in innovations like this? How do they enable innovation?
They set a baseline from which the improvement is needed to really help make these technologies more accessible — not only in communities that have the money and resources available to invest in sending the samples to centralized laboratories, but also in communities that lack those resources. The advantage of having laboratory standards is they can define clear metrics and requirements that anyone developing a solution can follow, and these standards can help them reach that goal. They also help in setting a more rigorous process during the product development cycle.
What are your biggest development priorities moving forward?
We have made our idea more consistent, but it’s still a bench prototype. And so, our next priorities will be to transition that bench prototype into an off-bench system that can leave the walls of a laboratory and be used for testing. Next, we’d like to start testing the user experience of the prototype and determine what improvements must be made to make it accessible to non-trained or non-expert users.
Looking ahead: Demo Day at the Milken Institute of Public Health in Washington, D.C.
On October 24, the Lead Detect Prize will host a Demo Day at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. During the event, the five Phase 2 teams will showcase their lead detection solutions, and the winners of the $850,000 Phase 2 prize pool will be announced.
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