Nanoparticles and Spectrometry techniques for highly Sensitive and speCific bActeria and PathogEn detection – NanoSCAPE

The NanoSCAPE project aims to develop a new analytical methodology based on the use of nanoparticles and spectrometry techniques for the very high sensitive detection of bacteria and pathogens. The use of spectrometrically revealed nanoparticles will allow the direct detection of bacteria with extremely low detection limits, of the order of 0.1 bacteria/ml in biological fluids (e.g. blood, urine, synovial fluid). Furthermore, this approach will allow the highly selective detection and counting of up to 30 strains of target bacteria and pathogens simultaneously and in just a few minutes. As part of the NanoSCAPE project, we will carry out a proof of concept on 10 different strains of bacteria.
This new approach could be complementary or even alternative to indirect diagnostic methods such as those based on antibody detection (ELISA, Western blot), or PCR.

An application for the direct detection of Borrelia involved in Lyme disease, which is considered difficult to diagnose, will be developed using blood, urine or synovial fluid samples. Through a diagnostic programme on nearly 450 patients (including controls) at different stages of the disease, we will evaluate the NanoSCAPE analytical approach in terms of efficiency, selectivity and ease of implementation on the different biological fluids mentioned above. The results will be systematically compared to existing tests and will allow us to decide on the relevance of proposing new tests based on the methodology developed in the project.

Given the wide range of scientific and technological fields involved (analytical chemistry, physical chemistry of nanoparticles, immunology, medicine), we have set up a consortium of 3 public research laboratories (including a university hospital), each of which is an expert in a key discipline, a private company that is a leader in the development of antibodies and a hospital that is recognised as a centre of competence for Lyme disease.

A significant part of the project will be devoted to technological (patents with the support of a regional SATT) and scientific (conferences, peer-reviewed articles) development. As such, it is not possible to give more strategic, technical and scientific information on the NanoSCAPE project in this summary.

In addition, after having carried out the main actions of technological valorisation, we will boost the interactions towards the general public through several conferences, interventions in high schools/colleges, diffusion on social networks and creation of a comic strip. We will also subcontract an expert organisation in the field of scientific popularisation to ensure not only the quality and content of the media (videos, comic strip) but also high visibility (several million views per week). An association (at least) on Lyme disease will also serve as a relay for the dissemination of the project's progress to the general public. We will also rely on the actions of a competitiveness cluster to help us disseminate our advances to the industrial world.

The NANOScape project will thus make it possible to develop a novel, extremely sensitive and rapid approach for the simultaneous detection of bacteria and pathogens in biological fluids, with applications that will ultimately go beyond the detection of Lyme disease.