New York: Ohio's University of Cincinnati develops portable lab to diagnose novel coronavirus. A tiny portable lab attaching to smart phone automatically connecting to doctors through a UC developed custom app created by the team of engineers including an Indian.
Researchers said within seconds the lab delivers test results and is highly functional to diagnose infectious diseases including coronavirus, malaria, Lyme disease and others.
The major element of the lab is a single-use plastic lab chip to put into patient’s mouth to test saliva. And then plug in to the device. Using a custom app, the device forwards sample results to doctor.
A novel lab chip created by research team which uses natural capillary action called “microchannel capillary flow assay” as two channels to drawing a sample down. First mixing sample with freeze-dried luminescent material capable reading outputs and split samples combine once again on three sensors. The new device is simple to use, accurate and inexpensive.
“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” said Sthitodhi Ghosh, Indian origin Doctoral student and lead person behind of the study.
"The entire test takes place on the chip automatically. You don't have to do anything. This is the future of personal healthcare," Ghosh said.
"Right now, it takes several hours or even days to diagnose in a lab, even when people are showing symptoms. The disease can spread," Ahn said in a paper published in the Nature journal Microsystems and Nanoengineering.
"The performance is comparable to laboratory tests. The cost is cheaper. And it's user-friendly. We wanted to make it simple so anyone could use it without training or support." Ahn added
