Stamp-Sized Paper “Chip” Diagnoses Diseases For Just a Penny

[Are_grits_groceries]

As far as mobile, ad-hoc medical labs for developing countries go, you can’t get any more mobile or ad-hoc than something the size of a postage stamp. One Harvard University chemist has developed an ultraportable “paper” chip that can diagnose killer diseases like malaria, HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis for just a penny at a time. A finger prick’s worth of blood on one side of the paper, according to inventor George Whitesides, produces a colorful, tree-like pattern on the other that indicates what ails you. The surprisingly low-tech secret? Water-repellant comic-book ink.

Saturated through several layers of paper, the ink conducts a patient’s blood into the forked channels, where it reacts with embedded chemicals to produce the bloom of diagnostic colors—not unlike a home pregnancy kit, Whiteside notes, except that the chips are smaller, cheaper, and test for multiple diseases simultaneously.

Plus, instead of a simple positive or negative reading, the results also illustrate the severity of the disease. Sophisticated technology this isn’t, but for people living in remote parts of Africa or Asia, the chips can quickly identify those who warrant more serious medical attention, as well as individuals who need to be quarantined immediately to stem the spread of a contagion.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/05/stamp-sized-paper-chip-diagnoses-diseases-for-just-a-penny/

A great idea for places where resources are minimal. It could be used in a lot of places besides the usually cited 'remote Africa or Asia.'

[comtec]

1. awesome, simple awesome (nt)

[Festivito]

2. Great news for the hypochondriacs also. Penny a day.

Take thirty of these and call me in a month.

Could be a sticky situation as countries screen you as you enter and exit borders.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. Unfortunately, a lot of new ideas

can be misused. However, if it stops a problem even at a border it would help. The problem with that is misusing it to hold people with fake results.

It is still a good idea IMHO.

[diane in sf]

3. This is science used very democratically, we need to retool the whole world along these

lines.

[Chulanowa]

5. Watch it vanish

Just a penny each?

Even if every human being on earth used these things... that's only sixty-six million dollars.

Pfizer alone makes that much monthly just from selling dick pills.

I'd like to applaud this - indeed, I do. Honestly, I do, it's a fantastic innovation and my heart skipped a beat at the implications of it. Unfortunately unless there's ludicrous profit to be made, it'll go nowhere. Unless it's like, made by Cuba and shipped out for free or something.

[Are_grits_groceries]

6. Then we shouldn't let it 'disappear'.

A sustained effort should be made to get NIH and other people behind it. Somebody needs to get to these people for the rights to it before BigPharma does. It can't hurt.

[zeemike]

7. This shows how science can change our world.

Now we only have to find a way to let it.

[Vinca]

8. A penny? Not in this country with $12 Kleenex and $58 surgical gloves.

[druidity33]

9. way cool. pretty too. K&R. nt.

[pleah]

10. K&R Cool! n/t

[melm00se]

11. won't work here

unless it's 100+% accurate. 1 mistake (say on HIV) and the patient would sue the doctor, the inventor and the company producing it right into the ground.

[JoeyT]

12. It depends on what we use it for.

If a doctor is using it as a pre-screen to tell them what the patient likely has it could be an important first step toward diagnosing problems. After all, no test is 100% accurate at catching every single disease.

Of course the downside to that would be that it'd end up costing two or three thousand dollars if it's used that way.