Remote disease detection in the palm of your hand

Medical Tribune November 2008 SFXII
David Brill

Scientists in Singapore have developed a simple battery-operated device that could be used to detect pathogens in remote medical clinics and war zones.

The palm-sized system, measuring around 10 cm in diameter, can detect a wide range of proteins and other molecules and does not need to be connected to a computer to function.

The researchers hope to make the device commercially available in the near future, estimating that it would cost around S$500 per unit once mass production was underway.

Dr. Pavel Neuzil, who led the project, said that the sensor took around 2 years to develop. He suggested that it could be used to detect diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, or to identify toxins used in bioterrorism.

“This whole effort, lab-on-a-chip, is meant for simple tools which can be very economical and can go to places where people who don’t have electricity can do very simple things,” he said.

Neuzil and his colleague Dr. Julien Reboud, who are based at Singapore’s Institute of Microelectronics, reported their work last month in the journal Analytical Chemistry. [2008 Aug 1;80(15):6100-3]

The system employs a technique called localized surface plasmon resonance to measure the intensity of light reflected from the surface of the test molecule. Although the guiding principles are not new, the device is greatly simplified compared to its predecessors, Neuzil said.

He added that the ability to operate without a computer was a major advantage of the system, which was initially developed for performing polymerase chain reactions and for use in tackling avian influenza.

“At the beginning somebody told me you should power it from USB because everybody has a computer around. And I told him ‘you are very funny because if you want to talk about avian flu it would be for Indonesia, places where they don’t even have electricity,’” he said.