UTS Science in Focus: Disease detection at your fingertips
Are you guilty of using “Dr Google” to check your symptoms for sickness and diseases? Do you like the ease of access and quick results? Imagine if you could easily, and accurately, detect a serious disease at its earliest stage with this sort of ease, and in the comfort of your own home!
Researchers at UTS Science are working on new innovations in nanotechnology and biomedical science that could revolutionise disease detection and prevention.
Professor Dayong Jin and Professor Alaina Ammit are two leading scientists working in different fields with the same aim of creating better disease detection and treatment technologies.
Prof Dayong Jin and Prof Alaina Ammit. Image by Shane Lo.
Professor Jin, a Eureka award winner, is leading a team of experts at UTS’s Initiative for Biomedical Materials and Devices (IBMD) that aim to create new simple at-home diagnostic technologies. Think smartphone apps that can be used at home to test for diseases, with the results sent straight to your doctor. Prof Jin’s latest research uses new developments in nanotechnology to create super high resolution imaging, paving the way for new understandings and discoveries in the human body.
Professor Alaina Ammit is a biomedical scientist at UTS and Director of the Woolcock Emphysema Centre. Her research into Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) aims to better understand the inflammatory pathways that cause changes in our lungs. With current anti-inflammatory medications relatively ineffective in treating COPD, Professor Ammit works with other researchers and specialist clinicians to develop new and more effective medications. The Woolcock Emphysema Centre also aims to create at home diagnostics to help detect diseases early and improve treatment plans.
