Coming up with a diabetes ‘game-changer’
Ottawa inventor’s blood test would benefit developing countries
If things work out as planned, doctors and nurses in developing countries could soon be able to conduct a simple, inexpensive blood test on patients to see if they’re at risk of developing diabetes, thanks to the work of Prakash Naidu.
The soft-spoken Ottawa man who describes himself as an inventor and innovator is working with a partner in India to develop a low-cost blood test that will detect a person’s current insulin resistance (IR) level and depict it on a 1-100 point scale.
Focusing on this information could result in a “know your number” public health program emphasizing IR awareness and the importance of keeping the number low, Naidu said. A score of 30 or higher would suggest a person is at risk of becoming prediabetic or developing Type 2 diabetes.
“If it is possible to implement, it will be a gamechanger because it’s preventive,” he said, and early detection means people can change their diet and lifestyle. “After you get (diabetes), you can’t do anything about it.”
Currently, physicians cannot easily test insulin resistance, which precedes clinical signs of diabetes. They have blood glucose tests to diagnose a patient who has already progressed to prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes, but these tests cannot detect IR at asymptomatic precursor stages, where it may remain undetected for decades.
The current means to diagnose IR are expensive, complex and time-consuming, Naidu said, adding they are not widely used in the developed world.
One method, the hyper-insulinemic-euglycemic clamp, is considered the gold standard, but Naidu says it is invasive, time-consuming and costs more than $3,000 to perform. Instead, he proposes to build on research already conducted in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada that demonstrated success in diagnosing asymptomatic volunteers as insulin resistant or healthy. He wants to extend that binary classification to a continuous scoring system covering the entire range of pre-diabetic states using a blood sample analyzed by a spectroscope.
It would be housed in a central lab facility, but as new portable models come on the market, the process could be decentralized, thus eliminating the cost of sending blood to a regional lab.
Naidu’s test would cost between $3 and $6 per test, based on volume, and there’s potential for a sponsorship business model enabling almost free service, he said.
The test would be used in India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, but there is a chance technology like this first used in the developing world — where 80 per cent of diabetes-related deaths occur — could eventually be adapted for use in Canada and other countries.
The focus on global health helped Naidu catch the attention of Grand Challenges Canada, which will award him a $100,000 seed grant.
The federally funded organization will hand out $9.3 million in grants to help foster the development of affordable innovations that could transform the way disease is treated in the developing world.
Of the 83 grants to be announced Thursday, 50 are given to innovators in 15 lowand middle-income countries worldwide and 33 to Canadian-projects, to be implemented in 30 countries throughout the developing world.
Among the novel ideas to reduce disease are diagnostic diapers to detect deadly rotavirus, a yogurt that offsets pesticides, heavy metals, and toxins in food, and shoe and boot material that releases bug repellent when walking.
Naidu said the grant will fund his project for 18 months, at which point he may be far enough along to leverage other sources. He hopes his test will be in use by 2017.