Desktop Biodetectors

IvyMike writes: "EE Times has an interesting article on the development of desktop biodetectors that could quickly detect the presence of pathogens like anthrax and smallpox. It uses some pretty cool technology to identify the target pathogen's DNA. Too bad we don't have these things today."

Economist Article

[cosyne]

The economist is running an article about a anthrax detector at http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm? Story_ID=821937 [economist.com].

"A better solution would be to screen on the spot. And technology to do this is now available. It uses a test strip, costing $20, that looks like a pregnancy-detection kit."

May be useful it you (or your employer) regularly do(es) things to piss people off so much that they'd want to kill you....

desktop not what you think it means

[myc]

The term "desktop" as used in the eetimes article probably does not mean what your typical computer geek thinks it means, as evidenced by the many posts so far. It's not a consumer device that sits on top of an home/office desk of the overly paranoid. Rather, it probably means that the device is sufficiently bulky as to make it not portable, and therefore must sit on a workbench in a lab. While such a device is useful for testing labs, its utility is somewhat less because it can't be used in the field.

That said, this is really cool technology. It's potentially much faster than the standard tests today, either polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or spore cultures (which is the *only* way to 100% reliably test for anthrax but is also the most time consuming protocol). Aside from testing for microbial agents, it sounds like the technology may have applications in high-throughput gene analysis.