This Is Smartphone Accessory For Rapid Diagnosis Of Infectious Diseases (Hiv In Addition To Syphilis) At Betoken Of Care
A squad of researchers, led past times Samuel K. Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering scientific discipline at Columbia Engineering, has developed a low-cost smartphone accessory that tin perform a point-of-care exam that simultaneously detects 3 infectious illness markers from a finger prick of blood inwards simply fifteen minutes. The device replicates, for the possess time, all mechanical, optical, too electronic functions of a lab-based blood test. Specifically, it performs an enzyme-linked immunosorbent essay (ELISA) without requiring whatever stored energy: all necessary powerfulness is drawn from the smartphone. It performs a triplexed immunoassay non currently available inwards a unmarried exam format: HIV antibody, treponemal-specific antibody for syphilis, too non-treponemal antibody for active syphilis infection.
Smartphone dongles performed a point-of-care HIV too syphilis exam inwards Rwanda from finger prick whole blood inwards fifteen minutes, operated past times wellness attention workers trained on a software app. (Credit: Samiksha Nayak, Columbia Engineering)
Sia's innovative accessory or dongle, a pocket-size device that easily connects to a smartphone or computer, was of late piloted past times wellness attention workers inwards Rwanda who tested whole blood obtained via a finger prick from 96 patients who were enrolling into prevention-of-mother-to-child-transmission clinics or voluntary counseling too testing centers. The piece of job is published Feb four inwards Science Translational Medicine. Sia collaborated amongst researchers from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health; the Institute of HIV Disease Prevention too Control, Rwanda Biomedical Center; Department of Pathology too Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center; Centers for Disease Control too Prevention—Laboratory Reference too Research Branch, Atlanta; too OPKO Diagnostics.
"Our piece of job shows that a total laboratory-quality immunoassay tin hold upward run on a smartphone accessory," says Sia. "Coupling microfluidics amongst recent advances inwards consumer electronics tin brand for certain lab-based diagnostics accessible to almost whatever population amongst access to smartphones. This sort of capability tin transform how wellness attention services are delivered some the world."
"Our dongle presents novel capabilities for a wide hit of users, from wellness attention providers to consumers," Sia adds. "By increasing detection of syphilis infections, nosotros powerfulness hold upward able to cut back deaths past times 10-fold. And for large-scale screening where the dongle's high sensitivity amongst few fake negatives is critical, nosotros powerfulness hold upward able to scale upward HIV testing at the community degree amongst immediate antiretroviral therapy that could nearly destination HIV transmissions too approach elimination of this devastating disease. We are actually excited nigh the adjacent steps inwards bringing this production to the marketplace inwards developing countries," he continues. "And nosotros are as excited nigh exploring how this engineering tin produce goodness patients too consumers dorsum home."
(Source: Phys.org)
