Research Offers Promise of Devices That Can Detect Disease With a Drop of Blood 27
An anonymous reader writes "An NJIT research professor known for his cutting-edge work with carbon nanotubes is overseeing the manufacture of a prototype lab-on-a-chip that would someday enable a physician to detect disease or virus from just one drop of liquid, including blood. 'Scalable nano-bioprobes with sub-cellular resolution for cell detection,' (Elsevier, Vol. 45), which will publish on July 15, 2013 but is available now online, describes how NJIT research professors Reginald Farrow and Alokik Kanwal, his former postdoctoral fellow, and their team have created a carbon nanotube-based device to noninvasively and quickly detect mobile single cells with the potential to maintain a high degree of spatial resolution."
If only (Score:2)
(sigh) Now if they could only detect blood glucose level without a drop of blood.
Blood?! (Score:4, Funny)
Of all the fluids they could use, blood is one of them! Who'd have thunk it?!
I've heard they can also detect gender with a single drop of semen.
Re: (Score:2)
not with 100% accuracy...
This will only hurt a bit (Score:1)
This tool would be indispensable when deciding if it's a good idea to bring "Candy the Stripper" home after a long night of drinking. When will the personal version be available?
what is it about biotech (Score:2, Informative)
that brings out the very worst gee whiz flying nuclear powered personal cars batman style here on slashdot ?
how big is a drop ?
About 50 - 100 uL (microliter, one cubic mm)
What sensitivity do you need to detect viruses and bacteria ?
you need to be able to detect things in the organism per mL range
A mL is 1,000 uL
Therefore, by definition, a drop of blood is prettty much useless for detecting viruses and bacteria in a serious way (oh, you died of S aureus sepsis cause we only sampled a small drop of blood and
BioFire (Score:3)
Lab on a chip? (Score:2)
Isn't this old news? I seem to remember reading stories about the potential of this over 5 years ago - but they were talking about doing a couple hundred tests on a drop of blood.
Well, this is perhaps a bit more specific, which would be a good thing, but it seems to be a major step back.
Though if they can get it good enough to tell bacterial strains with a single drop without having to do DNA analysis, it might help with treating such diseases with phages(viruses that infect/kill bacteria), allowing us to
George Whitesides: lab the size of a postage stamp (Score:3)
From 2009: http://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_a_lab_the_size_of_a_postage_stamp.html [ted.com]
"Among his solutions is a low-cost "lab-on-a-chip," made of paper and carpet tape. The paper wicks bodily fluids -- urine, for example -- and turns color to provide diagnostic information, such as how much glucose or protein is present. His goal is to distribute these simple paper diagnostic systems to developing countries, where people with basic training can administer tests and send results to distant doctors via
"Elsevier" is not a journal (Score:3, Informative)
"Elsevier" is a publisher, not a publication. The actual journal reference is Biosensors and Bioelectronics Volume 45, 15 July 2013, Pages 267–273
Re: (Score:2)
"Elsevier" is a publisher, not a publication.
"Elsevier" is a leach, not a publisher.
Don't forget Jack Andraka... (Score:1)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/06/18/wait-did-this-15-year-old-from-maryland-just-change-cancer-treatment/
Andraka’s diagnostic breakthrough is a humble piece of filter paper, except that it is dipped in a solution of carbon nanotubes, which are hollow cylinders with walls the thickness of a single atom, coated with a specific antibody designed to bind with the virus or protein you’re looking for. Andraka’s key insight is that there are noticeable changes in the electrical cond
Null content (Score:2)
Vampires will shut this down (Score:3)
Man I would invest in that! (Score:2)
Diagnostics is the hardest part!
Outrageous claims (from a minimal paper) (Score:1)
are a standard theme among lab-on-chip researchers. It should be keot in mind that micro total analysis systems (micro-tas) are thought about since the first minituarized electrophoresis systems were shown. But as a matter of fact, there are no point of care diagnostic tools alvailable to date that do not rely on the dip stick (or generally lateral flow) design. Why is that ?
Well the reasons are:
* Blood is a hard matrix (even urin is not fun to deal with apart from the smell)
* Valving/dosing systems on a c
not yet a significant step (Score:2)
Biosensors and Bioelectronics (where this was published) publishes dozens of papers a month like this. There are many equivalent journals published by Wiley, ACS and I'm sure many smaller University presses. We're at a point where publishing a paper is not a useful metric to demonstrate an advancement. There are too many recycled ideas, impractical demonstrations and outright (though peer-reviewed) lies.
Does he have a clinical partner willing to test this in a working hospital? Does he have financial ba