A Calgary high school student has created a faster and cheaper test for heart disease.
It’s called CADSense and 16 year old Zeel Patel’s invention can tell you in minutes if you have Atherosclerosis which is plaque buildup in your arteries and that can lead to heart attack, stroke or even death.
“It’s a paper based sensor,” says Patel. “Once the user puts in a blood based sample you will see the colour reaction occur.”
The paper will change from white to yellowish brown if a person’s blood contains the biomarker oxidized LDL which means they likely have plaque in their arteries.
“What my biosensor is able to do is detect it 340 times faster than our current metric and it is actually very inexpensive because of the materials I have utilized, “ says Patel.
One of his sensors costs $7.00 and would be an invaluable test to the estimated 1.3 million Canadians living with heart disease.
Patel attends Sir Winston Churchill High School and his science teacher Deborah Miller says he’s awesome.
“He'll argue with you about every little detail because he really wants to know,” she says. “He is young but boy is he going to be a major force in the universe as he matures.”
Patel is already making his mark.
Two weeks ago, Patel was at McGill University participating in the 55th annual Canada Wide Science Fair where he won a gold medal indicating he was top ten in Canada as well as the Canadian Medical Laboratory Health Sciences Award which is given to a health sciences project that’s the best in its age division.
Patel has applied for a patent for CADSense and hopes his invention will become a take-home test.
