Engineers with the University of Cincinnati have created a tiny portable lab that plugs into your phone, connecting it automatically to a doctor’s office through a custom app.
This Smartphone lab can diagnose infectious diseases such as coronavirus, malaria, HIV or Lyme disease or countless other health conditions like depression and anxiety.
The size of this portable lab will be similar to the size of a credit card.
The patient simply puts a single-use plastic lab chip into his mouth then plugs that into a slot in the box to test the saliva.
The device automatically transmits results to the patient’s doctor through a custom app for nearly instant results.
The research team used the smartphone device to test for malaria. But the device could be used for smart point of care testing for countless chronic or infectious diseases or to measure hormones related to stress.
This invention will be very useful. Because, right now it takes several hours or even days to diagnose in a lab, even when people are showing symptoms.
The study was published in the Nature journal Microsystems & Nanoengineering.
The research team created a novel lab chip that uses natural capillary action, the tendency for a liquid to adhere to a surface, to draw a sample down two channels called a “microchannel capillary flow assay.”
The researchers are saying that the device is accurate, simple to use and inexpensive.
The performance is comparable to laboratory tests. The cost is cheaper. And it’s user-friendly.
The biggest advancement in the device is in the novel design of its tiny channels that naturally draw the sample through the sensor arrays using capillary flow.
The entire test takes place on the chip automatically. We need not do anything.
News Source: Eurekalert
