April 19, 2020. Supported by the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) as a Technology Acquisition Project, BIOSENS - Development of Biological Warfare Agent Detection and Identification System - was developed by NANOBIZ, which is an ODTU Teknokent company.  NANOBIZ continues its efforts in the diagnosis of the COVID-19 virus nationally and locally through this system. 

As a consequence of the R&D studies that had been carried out by NANOBIZ since April 2017, the BIOSENS platform was developed, which comes in the form of a portable bag-sized laboratory. The system has become capable of detecting ELISA and PCR reactions simultaneously and also in the field.

After COVID-19 cases were reported in our country and as per the call of the President of Defense Industries, Prof. Ismail DEMIR, to the defense industry, defense industry companies revved up their efforts to contribute to the health sector.

The NANOBIZ R&D Team, led by Prof. Hüseyin Avni ÖKTEM, Faculty Member of ODTU Department of Biological Sciences, has accelerated the adaptation activities for the BIOSENS System which was originally developed for use primarily in the defense industry, to become capable of performing molecular diagnosis of COVID-19 with a high degree of accuracy.

By using the BIOSENS system, LAMP4U COVID-19 molecular diagnostic kits developed within this scope were observed to provide high accuracy results in 60 minutes through samples taken from the patients, without the need of a lengthy sample preparation process. It is considered that the BOISENS System will provide a cost advantage as a local and national solution thanks to its ability to perform the tests in the field, to provide rapid results in approximately 60 minutes by reducing the PCR test process (which normally takes 3-4 hours including the sample preparation process) and it is easy-use after short user training.

President of Defense Industries Prof. Ismail DEMIR said the following in his statement on the subject: “In order to utilize our experience in the defense industry in the healthcare field and to realize the national technology move also in this field, we continue our efforts together with our companies under the coordination of our Presidency. We expect the BIOSENS system, which provides fruitful results in the laboratory environment, to go into mass production in a short time after its test process of application in the field. I believe that the BIOSENS system will provide great convenience for our healthcare professionals in the diagnosis of COVID-19. I congratulate NANOBIZ that has developed this system with local and national resources.”