Quantitative diagnostics · Intelligent Material
A familiar lateral-flow strip becomes quantitative, multiplexable and unusually low-background when the reporter itself is engineered to carry a precise optical identity.
Why the signal is cleaner
Rare-earth reporters are excited with near-infrared light and emit defined visible wavelengths. Ordinary biological material does not respond the same way, so the optical background drops away and the line can be measured instead of eyeballed.
Excite with near-infrared, detect visible emission. The background that limits conventional labels largely disappears.
Signal intensity is measured against calibration data, so concentration, disease burden or biomarker change can be followed over time.
Emission wavelength can be combined with lifetime, rise/decay, excitation wavelength and power-density response to create more optical codes for multiplexing.
See the assay in action
This walkthrough shows the Intelligent Material lateral-flow workflow and the optical reader interpreting multiple biomarker lines from finger-prick blood.
What the literature shows
Two results from the published record show how far the reporter has pushed a simple strip format. Performance is assay-specific; these are examples, not guarantees for every target.
A Corstjens-led schistosomiasis study reported a 0.5 pg/mL detection limit for the Intelligent Material lateral-flow format, with strong correlation to infection intensity.
Detection limit: shorter bar is better. Schistosoma circulating anodic antigen, 2008.In HPV16 testing, Paul Corstjens and colleagues reported at least a 100-fold improvement over colloidal gold and concluded that amplification-free viral detection was achievable in principle.
Relative sensitivity: longer bar is better. This does not mean every lateral-flow assay equals PCR; target, chemistry and sample handling still matter.The point is not that one strip replaces every laboratory assay. The same reporter platform has repeatedly pushed lateral flow toward ELISA-class quantification and, in selected nucleic-acid formats, toward molecular-test sensitivity with much simpler workflows.
Paul Corstjens · field translation
Paul Corstjens and the Leiden team have spent years moving quantitative rapid tests out of the laboratory and into endemic regions, clinical programs and public-health studies: fingerstick sampling, household visits, school surveys and healthcare-worker training.
House visits to registered leprosy patients and testing of family members.
Field record ↗Point-of-care field evaluation for transmission tracking, treatment monitoring and differential diagnosis.
Field record ↗Training and implementation work as part of an EDCTP-funded trial.
Field record ↗Demonstration and training with national TB and leprosy programs.
Field record ↗Training in Varanasi for a door-to-door screening program in children.
Field post ↗Training and evaluation using banked serum samples within the broader development network.
Field record ↗Patients tested using fingerstick and ear blood in endemic-area programs.
Field record ↗Training and evaluation using banked serum samples within the broader development network.
Field record ↗School-based serosurveys using quantitative fingerstick blood in children.
Field record ↗Beyond lateral flow
IMS is extending material-level optical coding into high-parameter flow cytometry, using highly uniform Intelligent Material reporters, with the instrument designed around the materials rather than forcing them into a conventional fluorescence workflow.
Breadth
Intelligent Material pairs with antibodies, antigens, nucleic-acid capture systems and other recognition chemistries. The optical reporter stays the same while the biology changes around the question being asked.
Quantitative anti-PGL-I and multi-biomarker tests, fingerstick sampling, treatment monitoring, transmission studies and public-health screening.
Quantitative host-biomarker panels for diagnosis and treatment-response monitoring, including multi-center field studies.
Circulating anodic antigen detection with very high analytical sensitivity and quantitative readout.
Portable lateral-flow screening with strong proof-of-principle clinical performance in published studies.
Sequence-specific lateral-flow concepts using optical reporters for sensitive, amplification-light or amplification-free workflows where the assay chemistry supports it.
Simultaneous measurement of cellular and humoral biomarkers in a field-friendly format.
Quantitative measurement of drug concentration and treatment response from small samples, with the potential to combine drug level and disease-state biomarkers in one reader platform.
Multiplex biomarker panels for TBI and neurological injury, designed for rapid triage, longitudinal monitoring and use outside a central laboratory.
Quantitative or threshold-based assays for drug and metabolite detection in saliva, urine or other sample types using the same reader architecture.
A 2021 study co-authored by Paul Corstjens used the quantitative rapid-test platform to detect and monitor Mycobacterium leprae infection in nine-banded armadillos.
Read the paper ↗Field diagnostics for livestock, companion animals and infectious-disease surveillance using the same quantitative lateral-flow architecture.
Rapid testing concepts for pathogens, toxins, allergens and contamination in food-processing, agricultural and supply-chain settings.
Portable assays for biological contaminants, toxins and selected chemical targets where specific capture chemistry can be paired with the optical reporter.
Peer-reviewed evidence
Papers using Intelligent Material reporters, led or co-authored by Paul Corstjens and collaborators.
Paul Corstjens · Google Scholar ↗Build the next assay
NovaVera commercializes the platform while IMS continues materials, reader and assay-system development. Bring us the biomarker and the setting; we will work backward to the reporter, strip and reader.