Blood testing technology developed by South Australian medical researchers is poised to transform the nutrition industry.
Adelaide-based Trajan Nutrition is starting to market its new nutrition testing globally after proving the technique can replace costly and time-consuming vial blood testing with a simple finger prick.
The team is looking to break into the United States, European and Asian markets targeting five key customer groups: researchers, pathology labs, vitamin supplement companies, health insurers and corporations.
“After preparatory work we are now at development stage, we’re almost ready to start training our global team to start promoting,” Trajan Nutrition chief executive officer Marco Baccanti said.
Baccanti said the technique would have a major impact on the nutrition industry by cutting testing costs, improving efficiencies and reducing the need for invasive blood testing for patients.
He said the blood spot testing had numerous potential income streams.
Vitamin supplement companies for example could provide customers with a testing kit where they could make a blood spot at home, dab it onto specially created paper, then send it to a lab for testing before they bought their products.
“This could offer people the opportunity to first see if their diet is imbalanced,” Baccanti said.
“Pathology labs can also now start using this methodology with far less invasive collection of blood of patients and using faster analytics and more cost effective techniques.”
The breakthrough includes the development of special contaminant-free paper to protect the specific blood compounds being tested. Solvents have also been developed to help transfer the dried blood samples from the paper to testing instruments.
University of Adelaide Professor of Functional Food Science Robert Gibson began work on the technology 10 years ago with Professor Maria Makrides.
Prof Makrides is one of Australia’s leading research experts into the nutritional needs of mothers and their babies, she leads the Healthy Mothers, Babies and Children Theme of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) in Adelaide.
Both professors now also lead Trajan Nutrition, after making the breakthrough while overseeing large clinical nutrition trials of mothers and babies throughout the ...
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