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St. Petersburg State University students have developed an express system for determining amines

Participants of the contest of student business projects "Start-up of St. Petersburg State University" learned in just half an hour to determine the level of several amines in the blood at once - organic compounds that can tell about a variety of diseases. The mobile express system helps to carry out more than a third of the tests that medical laboratories offer today: tests for cholesterol, hormones, myoglobin, histamine, blood clotting factors, vitamins and much more.

Innovative material

Today there are three methods for determining amines: enzyme immunoassay, chromatographic and electrochemical. The first one consists of many stages: some substances need to be detached, others need to be isolated, as a result, the study can last up to six hours, and the result will not be the most accurate. The second method is much more accurate, but it requires a special bulky device – a chromatograph, the cost of which can reach up to half a million euros. The third method is not so expensive and fast enough, the only problem is that the electrodes are used only once, and it is quite difficult to make them.

"We found a new composite material for the electrode, which turned out to be selective for biogenic amines," said Valentin Ershov, the author of the BioEl project, a student of the Chemistry, Physics and Mechanics of Materials department. – This means that it allows using the electrochemical method to detect the substances we need. With its help, we were able to make the electrode reusable, lower its cost, reduce the test time to 20-30 minutes, and also increase the accuracy and sensitivity of the analysis."

One molecule out of a billion

The device takes up no more space than a laptop: an electrochemical cell with the same electrode, a potentiostat-galvanostat (it creates various physical parameters: current, voltage and resistance of different strengths) and a special computer program that knows which amine gives which electrochemical response. Interestingly, even three electrodes can participate in the analysis, which means that in one session you can do a test for 10-12 substances at once.

Among other advantages of the system is excellent sensitivity: it can find one amine molecule in a billion water molecules. In addition, the test error is practically minimized – it is less than 1%, whereas for glucose meters it is 10-15%. And you can use the device anywhere: to carry out tests with it, for example, for residents of the Far North, for women with long pregnancies or other people who sometimes find it difficult to get to the laboratory.

Disease signals

Chemistry students Valentin Ershov and Stepan Danilov, economics students Vladimir Statsenko and Dmitry Batchenko, as well as future dentist Arkady Arushanyan are working on the BioEl project today. The research of young scientists is led by Oleg Levin, Candidate of Chemical Sciences, Associate Professor of St. Petersburg State University, head of the laboratory "Scientific Group of Materials for Electrochemical Energy based on organometallic polymers".

"The search for amino groups in human blood and other biological fluids is one of the important tasks of modern medical diagnostics," Oleg Levin said. – Its solution will allow to diagnose various diseases in time: blood clotting disorders, anemia, some tumors, and will also help to find out the cause of high blood pressure."

From medicine to ecology

The new technology can be used not only in medicine, the researchers explain. The amount of amines is important to control both in the environment and in the production of medicines or products. For example, amino groups are used in the creation of rocket fuel, and some of them are carcinogens, and exceeding their concentration in the air can cause serious harm to human health, up to a fatal outcome. The guys also thought about creating a device by analogy with a nitratometer, which would tell the store whether the sausage is fresh or not. After all, by the content of amines, you can determine the quality of the product: whether it is overdue and from what raw materials it is made.

"In the future, it is possible to cooperate with industrial enterprises, environmental services that are engaged in water and air quality checks," said Vladimir Statsenko, a student of Economics. – But for now we want to focus on medical laboratories. Our system will help them not only to achieve the sensitivity of the chromatographic method, but also to reduce operating costs. Several of the largest Russian networks from this area have already become interested in the development."

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  16.05.2017