AsianScientist (Oct. 9, 2015) – Scientists from Singapore and United States have invented a kit to test liver toxicity that can provide results in 30 minutes. This invention and its effectiveness are explained in the recent issue of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Lab on a Chip.
The researchers are currently working on a prototype that miniaturizes a test lab into the size of a needle. This “lab-in-a-needle” device will be effective, for example, in quickly detecting liver toxicity, a common side effect of chemotherapy.
Current tests entail multiple steps and results could take several days. Instead, the compact kit can take patient samples, prepare them for testing, evaluate toxicity and display the results in one simple process.
Dr. Wang Zhiping, Director of Research Programs at Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), said, “Our goal is to integrate sample acquisition and preparation into one device, a significant challenge that has slowed the development of point-of-care testing.”
The “lab-in-a-needle” test kit has two key components: a microfluidic chip that extracts and cleans the required test sample from the blood, while the second chip runs the various tests on the purified blood sample.
It is the brainchild of a joint research team from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), SIMTech and the Houston Methodist Hospital Research Institute.
NTU Professor Joseph Chang, who is involved in the design and construction of the prototype, said, “What our prototype shows is that samples can be prepared and analysed through it, eliminating the need for wet laboratory work and manpower.”
“Our new method significantly reduces time, manpower and costs and yet has the same accurate results as the gold standards of current liver toxicity tests,” added Chang, who is also the Director of VIRTUS Center of Excellence in Integrated Circuit Design at NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
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Source: Nanyang Technological University.
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