Diagnostic technologies

Diagnostics enable the detection and measurement of specific biomarkers, molecules or signals to assess health, monitor treatments or detect changes in the environment. From smart patches to lab-on-chip systems, they are essential tools in personalised healthcare, industrial monitoring, environmental sensing, food safety and beyond.
Key facts
Accelerated design and development of diagnostic devices through VTT’s unique pilot infrastructure
Low-cost diagnostic devices can help to generate continuous data for clinical decision support and AI
We can tailor antibodies to detect specific molecules such as protein biomarkers, toxins, hormones, vitamins, antibiotics and food contaminants

Is there anything more exciting than taking a pregnancy test and waiting to see if two lines appear? Similar applications are constantly being developed for a wide range of uses.
VTT provides R&D services and upscaling solutions for novel and integrated diagnostics devices in predictive and preventive health care, food safety and environmental monitoring. Our biosensor and wearables teams combine competences in recombinant antibody and assay development, printed and hybrid biosensors, optoelectronics, wearable device design, material science and biotechnology.

Key research and development focus areas
One of VTT’s key differentiators is that we have a printed and hybrid electronics pilot manufacturing infrastructure, which allows prototype upscaling studies early on in the development cycle, combined with in-house antibody development, custom assay design and smart patch integration. Our offering includes:
- Assay development for:
- rapid immunoassays in different diagnostics platforms including FRET, arrays-in-wells, lateral flow assays (LFA)
- nucleic acid assays
- printed electrochemical sensors
- Tailored recombinant antibody development and production:
- antibodies for diagnostic and analytical applications including VTT’s proprietary immune complex antibody technology
- therapeutic antibodies for pre-clinical studies
- discovery of new antibodies from phage display libraries
- production and purification services
- Innovative biosensor platforms and next generation devices in combination with unique and high-value recombinant antibodies
- Highly sensitive and reliable diagnostic instruments and tools for use at home and at POC-settings in different applications fields
- Upscaling and roll-to-roll (R2R) pilot manufacturing of microfluidic devices on several substrates (foil, paper, PDMS)
- Printed sensors and indicators for easy-to-use food and environmental safety tests
Innovation ecosystems and networks
VTT is an active member of a number of international innovation ecosystems and clusters. VTT is part of
- MedPhab – European Pilot Line for Photonic Medical Devices
- PrintoCent – industry cluster for printed electronics

Related infrastructure
Watch our videos
VTT pilot manufacturing for diagnostics and wearables

Anti-immunocomplex antibodies - One step reliable immunoassay for small molecules

Integrated microfluidics by mass-production

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Towards sustainable electronics
At VTT, our goal is to set a new standard for sustainability in the electronics industry and offer solutions that increase circularity at every stage of the electronics life cycle. Explore:
- Five ways to improve sustainability of electronics
- How to create new business from sustainable electronics?
- How to reduce electronics waste with sustainable printed electronics?

More information
- Wearable sensors detect what’s in your sweat
- Regional and correlative sweat analysis using high-throughput microfluidic sensing patches toward decoding sweat
- New affordable, credit-card-size rapid test to see if you’re fit to drive
Public references & videos related to diagnostic technologies:
- Roll-to-roll manufacturing of integrated immunodetection sensors
- Sweat analytics collaboration with UC Berkeley
- Roll-to-roll upscaling of lab-on-chip devices (Ultraplacad EU project): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLkYtVlPrV0 and www.ultraplacad.eu
- Immunocomplex antibody technology
- Roll-to-roll fabrication of integrated PDMS–paper microfluidic
- MedPhab Europe’s first Photonics Pilot Line on medical applications
- CADMIM collaboration
See our publications related to diagnostic technologies
- New pressure sensing elements for FFR coronary catheter
- Integration of a capacitive pressure sensing system into the outer catheter wall for coronary artery FFR measurements
- New MEMS pressure sensor element and concept for coronary catheter
- Ultrathin MEMS pressure sensor and readout ASIC
- SAFTIR - a novel point-of-need diagnostic platform for animal health and food safety