Portable device diagnoses blood in minutes
A Columbia University researcher has reportedly developed a virtual “lab-on-a-chip,” which is able to diagnose tiny samples of blood within minutes and can be used in remote locations, according to study findings published online July 31 in Nature Medicine.
Samuel K. Sia, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University in New York City, developed the mobile microfluidic chip (mChip), which requires a finger-prick of blood to obtain quantifiable objective lab results in less than 15 minutes. The diagnostic device—about the size of a credit card—utilizes microfluidics, or the manipulation of small amounts of fluid, to produce low-cost diagnostics in resource-limited settings.
Testing the instrument in Rwanda for the last four years, Sia and his team were able to significantly reduce the time between diagnosis and treatment.
“We have engineered a disposable credit card-sized device that can produce blood-based diagnostic results in minutes,” said Sia. “The idea is to make a large class of diagnostic tests accessible to patients in any setting in the world, rather than forcing them to go to a clinic to draw blood and then wait days for their results.”
Sia envisions the mChip will help pregnant women in Rwanda who may be suffering from sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, but cannot be diagnosed with certainty because they live too far away from clinics or hospitals with labs. “Diagnosis of infectious diseases is very important in the developing world,” said Sia. “When you’re in these villages, you may have the drugs for many STDs, but you don’t know who to give treatments to, so the challenge really comes down to diagnostics.”
The mChip was developed at Columbia in collaboration with Claros Diagnostics, a start-up co-founded by Sia in 2004. The microchip inside the device is formed through injection molding and holds miniature forms of test tubes and chemicals, according to a Columbia release.
The cost of the chip is about $1 and the entire device is about $100. A version of the device that tests prostate cancer was approved for use in Europe in 2010.
Samuel K. Sia, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University in New York City, developed the mobile microfluidic chip (mChip), which requires a finger-prick of blood to obtain quantifiable objective lab results in less than 15 minutes. The diagnostic device—about the size of a credit card—utilizes microfluidics, or the manipulation of small amounts of fluid, to produce low-cost diagnostics in resource-limited settings.
Testing the instrument in Rwanda for the last four years, Sia and his team were able to significantly reduce the time between diagnosis and treatment.
“We have engineered a disposable credit card-sized device that can produce blood-based diagnostic results in minutes,” said Sia. “The idea is to make a large class of diagnostic tests accessible to patients in any setting in the world, rather than forcing them to go to a clinic to draw blood and then wait days for their results.”
Sia envisions the mChip will help pregnant women in Rwanda who may be suffering from sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, but cannot be diagnosed with certainty because they live too far away from clinics or hospitals with labs. “Diagnosis of infectious diseases is very important in the developing world,” said Sia. “When you’re in these villages, you may have the drugs for many STDs, but you don’t know who to give treatments to, so the challenge really comes down to diagnostics.”
The mChip was developed at Columbia in collaboration with Claros Diagnostics, a start-up co-founded by Sia in 2004. The microchip inside the device is formed through injection molding and holds miniature forms of test tubes and chemicals, according to a Columbia release.
The cost of the chip is about $1 and the entire device is about $100. A version of the device that tests prostate cancer was approved for use in Europe in 2010.