McRobbie, Max; (2025) Rapid infectious disease detection using quantum materials and smartphones. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Max McRobbie - PhD Thesis - final version.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 March 2026. Download (6MB)

Abstract

Lateral flow tests (LFTs) are one of the most common diagnostic tests used throughout the world with the COVID-19 pandemic further highlighting their importance. LFTs generally rely on colorimetric signal generation, employing gold nanoparticles or latex beads as the reporter. The tests are usually interpreted by eye, making the result qualitative and subjective, and often limiting the sensitivity of the test. Several attempts have been made to address these limitations, for example lateral flow readers and machine learning image classification can interpret tests objectively; the former also has the potential to offer quantitative readout. Fluorescent reporters can be employed to improve sensitivity limits, although most fluorescent LFTs will require a reader. Fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) were first applied to a LFT platform by Miller et al. in the McKendry group (Nature, November 2020) and since then many other examples of nanodiamond-based LFTs have been published. This thesis reports on several key advances (i) An investigation of potential improvements to the FND LFT platform demonstrated by our group (Nature 2020) through further characterisation and optimisation of the platform; (ii) An exploration of the use of smartphones for detecting and measuring optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) of FND particles and readout of FND LFTs; and (iii) The development a proof-of-concept prototype smartphone-connected reader to miniaturise the optical/microscope system used for FND readout in the laboratory setting, thus presenting a possibility for FND LFTs to be used at the point-of-care (POC)/point-of-need (PON). Key results using model systems for protein and nucleic acid detection are presented, as well as conclusions and study limitations. To conclude, the research in this thesis marks an important advance in the field of quantum-enabled lateral flow tests, which has the potential to transform decentralised testing of infectious diseases in resource limited settings.

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