Epileptogenetic marker detection

Looking for partners: This project will develop an innovative electrochemical diagnostic kit for rapid, ultra-sensitive, and specific detection of epilepsy-associated miRNAs (miR-143, miR-145, miR-532, miR-365a, miR-663a). Epilepsy impairs neurological function and quality of life; therefore, early diagnosis and improved monitoring are essential. While diagnosis commonly relies on clinical assessment, EEG, and MRI, quantitative molecular biomarkers can strengthen diagnosis and follow-up, and miRNA panels may reveal early disease signatures in difficult-to-classify subgroups. The project’s novelty is to immobilize miRNA-specific probe oligonucleotides on nanoparticles and quantify targets via Single-Entity Electrochemistry (SEE). Instead of bulk measurements, SEE captures transient current pulses from individual nanoparticle collisions on an electrode, enabling substantially lower detection limits. Chronoamperometric analysis of single-particle events after miRNA hybridization provides high-resolution time and amplitude data, increasing sensitivity while reducing background noise and specificity issues. High resulution based data will be processed by machine-learning system to discriminate the specific miRNA and isolate specific signals.