A groundbreaking local study has successfully translated nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology into a faster, cheaper and more accessible way to assess heart disease risk.
The study is being co-led by Professor Jeremy Nicholson, Director of the Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC) at WA’s Murdoch University, thanks to co-funding by The Hospital Research Foundation Group.
It paves the way to significantly improve public health outcomes worldwide and provide early accessible testing to those in remote and regional communities.
Prof Nicholson said: “This is not just about improving individual diagnostics; it’s about enabling population-scale disease prevention and personalised medicine.”
The Hospital Research Foundation Group is incredibly proud to have contributed to this work, with WA Board of Governors’ Chair, Colin La Galia, saying the technology had the potential to be a true game-changer.
“This has the potential to be one of the most important contributions to population health and preventative medicine ever seen,” Mr La Galia said.
“Having this technology more accessible and affordable will change the way we manage heart disease and other chronic conditions, ultimately saving lives.”
The rapid assessment method can measure 25 important markers such as cholesterol, in less than 15 minutes using radio waves. This new application (currently research use only) could support more patients or people from the general population, in more locations – including regional and remote areas – to access prompt diagnosis and therefore earlier treatment.
The research team has successfully developed a calibration model which is able to accurately quantify 25 key lipoprotein markers, including total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, ApoA1, and ApoB100, in less than 15 minutes per sample.
These markers are essential for assessing cardiometabolic risk and monitoring inflammatory conditions, providing clinicians with a rapid and reliable diagnostic tool.
“The ANPC is focused on biomedical discovery and effective clinical translation. Currently most CVD risk markers are only measured on high-risk patients, and it would be much better to detect these markers earlier to enable corrective action,” Professor Nicholson said.
The affordability and accessibility of benchtop NMR technology could transform cardiovascular disease screening, particularly in resource-limited settings or in geographically vast regions with dispersed and sometimes deprived populations such as Western Australia, where centralised testing facilities may be hundreds of kilometres from rural communities.
“This new approach will also allow us to study the general population at scale for the first time,” Professor Nicholson said.
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