Modular Lateral Flow Assays to Prepare for Disease-X

Lateral flow assays (LFAs) are rapid tests that bring disease detection into the home and unsurprisingly there’s a push for assays delivering pandemic preparedness.[3,4] Scaling up manufacture of new LFAs is time consuming and expensive. Re-envisioning LFAs in a way that enables them to be stockpiled and quickly adapted to new diseases would be transformative in our ability to deliver the 100-Days Mission to ensure appropriate diagnostics, vaccines and treatments of Disease-X can be delivered at scale within 100 days.

You’ll be working in the interdisciplinary groups of Dr. Michael Thomas (Supervisor, London Centre for Nanotechnology), Dr. Stefanie Frank (Secondary Supervisor, Dept. Biochemical Engineering) and Dr. Philip Pearce (Tertiary Advisor, Dept. Mathematics) creating a truly interdisciplinary project. Building on the deep expertise of the team in novel LFA development, protein expression and assembly, and fluid dynamics, the work will also capitalise on the world leading nanotechnology and advanced biochemical manufacturing facilities and research environments of UCL.

The successful candidate will be engineering new, modular approaches to LFAs. They’ll tackle the pipeline from assay conception, component production and efficacy testing. They’ll be creating new designer proteins, synthesising and surface modifying nanoparticles, engineering assay design, and applying recently developed LFA simulation tools to establish a broadly applicable modular LFA. The vision is that modular LFA will lend to rapid implementation for emerging diseases in preparation for the next Disease X and we’ll use disease targets from recent pandemics such as SARS-CoV-2 for initial development. The student will also be developing a breadth of transferable skills in conference presentation, research article preparation and research skills training.

We’re looking for ambitious students with an appropriate master’s degree or MRes in a scientific/engineering discipline. Application deadline is 13:00 on 28 January 2025. The position is competition funded (EU/UK) although all international applicants can be considered where outstanding applicants apply.  

[1]Land et al.Nat.Microbiol.2018,4(1),46. [2]Budd et al.Nat.Rev.Bioeng.2023,1,13. [3]Loynachan et al.ACS Nano.2018,12(1),279. [4]Miller et al.Biosens.Bioelectron.2022,207,17. [5]Ayrton et al.Nanoscale.2024,16,19881