Imagine, a quick pinprick on the sidelines of a football game that could tell athletes whether they’ve concussed. Arizona startup BioDirection is developing a point-of-care device that diagnoses minor brain injury quickly – in 60 to 90 seconds – with just a single drop of blood.
The five-year-old company just raised $1.6 million, according to a regulatory filing. Before that, BioDirection brought in a $3.95 million Series A round last year.
BioDirection uses nano-biosensors to pick up on protein biomarkers released into the bloodstream when a person gets a concussion. The technology was developed by Dr. Charles Lieber at Harvard University andlicensed from Nanosys Inc., a company that designs and builds advanced materials.