The PoreDetect proposal focussed on the further development of nanopore sensing technology developed as part of the DesignerPores ERC grant. During the work we established novel DNA designs that allow for the identification of short RNA molecules with length of 20 nucleotides. The strand displacement reactions were used to detect viral RNA as well as synthetic RNA with concentrations in the 100s of pMol range in 10s of minutes. However, due to the delay in the start due to the lockdown and pandemic we updated the goals of the project to produce two patents and a publication that can serve as a stepping stone for a company. The production of the prototype for the measurements progressed but the advent of the pandemic in 2020 first delayed and then changed the focus of the project to viral RNA detection. However, as RNA is still the target, the techniques can be used for the original plan of RNA biomarker analysis. T As mentioned before, the main outcome of the project are two patents that are filed through Cambridge Enterprise. The two patents for detection of long and short RNA strands will be exclusively licensed to a start up company. Our spin-out company Cambridge Nucleomics is set up and we are currently in the fund raising state and joined several accelerator program in Cambridge and international.
