Kidscan placement studentship 2024-25 (Lehr)

Project Description

Acute leukaemia is a common form of childhood cancer.1 Treatment of acute leukaemia generally involves multidrug treatment protocols, which have dramatically increased survival rates from 10% several decades ago to over 65% today.2, 3 However, such treatments can often have long-lasting debilitating impacts.4 One drug that is a cornerstone of childhood leukaemia is the chemotherapy drug asparaginase. However, asparaginase treatment can have severe side effects such as anaphylactic shock. Asparaginase antibodies (anti-asparaginase) usually present themselves in the blood prior to such adverse effects. These are currently only monitored by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) which cannot be employed for high frequency, real-time, monitoring of patient status.5 Electrochemical sensors are able, in principle, to monitor antibody levels in real time.