Earlier Identification of Pregnancy Complications Through Blood Testing

This project is engineering a point-of-care (POC) molecular diagnostic platform that integrates bioinformatics-guided biomarker discovery with simplified isothermal nucleic acid amplification. The system enables rapid, low-cost, and minimally invasive screening for major pregnancy-related complications (preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, fetal growth restriction, etc), specifically designed to bypass the infrastructure constraints of decentralized and resource-limited healthcare settings

The challenge

Maternal health complications remain a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality globally, presenting a critical public health crisis particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Current clinical diagnostics rely heavily on centralized laboratory infrastructure, sophisticated analytical instruments, and complex, time-consuming sample preparation protocols. Consequently, risk identification is frequently delayed until clinical symptoms are fully established, severely limiting the window for effective medical intervention. This paradigm requires a decisive shift toward accessible, affordable, and proactive diagnostic solutions capable of routine, repeated testing in regional and remote communities.

Pregnancy-related pathologies initiate at the placental molecular level long before routine systemic signs manifest. Sensitive, specific, and rapid diagnostic technologies are needed to detect early biological signals from non-invasive maternal samples and convert them into clinically meaningful information. To address this diagnostic gap, this project aims to develop a functional, modular POC platform capable of processing unextracted whole blood directly. By translating complex, multi-layered biological data into accessible, real-time clinical indicators, the platform establishes a field-deployable strategy for early risk prediction, enabling timely, preventative clinical decision-making.

Our response

The research team is actively developing a POC diagnostic framework that utilizes a dual-biomarker scoring matrix to achieve comprehensive maternal risk assessment directly from blood samples. The core innovation centers on a functional modular microfluidic platform designed to partition whole blood into two primary cellular and acellular components within separate analytical chambers. The cellular chamber maps the baseline maternal–fetal genetic risk and inherited predispositions, while the plasma chamber monitors real-time placental activity and detects early placental dysfunction.

Following automated compartmentalization, both chambers undergo integrated heat-mediated lysis to generate crude lysates, eliminating the need for commercial nucleic acid extraction kits. These lysates are subsequently analyzed via colorimetric isothermal amplification protocols. This approach allows the simultaneous visual detection of both static genetic risks and dynamic physiological biomarkers within one hour, operating completely independent of thermal cyclers, fluorescence detectors, or complex laboratory instrumentation.

The goal

This project delivers a validated, field-deployable platform that shifts maternal diagnostics from reactive symptom management to proactive risk stratification. By integrating blood fractionation, chemical-free lysis, and isothermal amplification into a unified POC system, this research eliminates reliance on costly laboratory networks, making it ideal for low- and middle-income countries. Beyond maternal health, this functional modular framework serves as a versatile technological template, easily adapted for decentralized biomarker detection across diverse infectious and oncological disease states.

Representative publications: ACS Nano Med. (2026), 1, 342–381; ACS Sensors (2023), 8, 2493-2513; Anal. Chem. (2019), 91, 3827-3834.