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Two NSU students, Marina Rakhmanova from the Natural Sciences Department and a graduate of the Economics Department, Anna Isakova, are busy developing a portable device for personalized diagnostics. It will quickly measure the level of female hormones to a nicety and predict the time of ovulation.

The developers expect their device to become a must for the women who plan pregnancy. Such a home use medical device is expected to combine a high accuracy and reliability of the results, similar to those of clinical testing, with rate and time, which will take about five minutes.

‘Laboratory testing and in-person physician visits provide accurate results but are time consuming and labor intensive. Our idea was to create a small, reusable device like a glucose meter which could use dipstrips and would be easy to use at home. It will analyze two hormones at once, LH and estradiol. This method is far more accurate than those used in the devices available now, which analyze only LH. What is more, most popular dipstrips with their high-level hormone requirements might turn inefficient for some women with lower levels of hormones. In addition, medical tests can check whether or not ovulation took place while the time for conception may have passed,’ the developers explain.

According to them, the device is able to store the data and analyze how the hormone level changes, which will help to predict the next ovulation and be prepared for it. Special software will enable the biosensor to transfer the data to a computer or a mobile device, which can be used in direct contacts with the doctor while taking hormone therapy.

In the heart of the device lies a crystal resonator developed by the specialists from the Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics SB RAS and Medical Biological Union, Ltd. It is this element that allows advanced detection and enables to analyze a wide range of biomaterial.