 |
UK scientists have developed a USB test
(pictured) which can detect levels of HIV in a drop of blood. The
disposable technology could help patients to monitor their own treatment and
produces an accurate result in just 30 minutes
|
Scientists in Britain have developed a type of
HIV test using a USB stick that can give a fast and highly accurate reading of
how much virus is in a patient's blood.
The device, created by scientists at Imperial
College London and the privately-held U.S. firm DNA Electronics, uses a drop of
blood to detect HIV, then creates an electrical signal that can be read by a
computer, laptop or handheld device.
The researchers say the technology, although
still in the early stages, could allow patients to regularly monitor their
virus levels in a similar way to diabetes patients checking their blood sugar
levels.
It could be particularly useful in remote
settings to help HIV patients manage their treatment more effectively, since
current tests to detect virus levels take at least three days and involve
sending a blood sample to a laboratory.
"Monitoring viral load is crucial to the
success of HIV treatment. At the moment, testing often requires costly and
complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result,"
said Graham Cooke, who co-led the research from the Imperial's department of
medicine.
"We have taken the job done by this
equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a
USB chip."
The test, which uses a mobile phone chip,
requires a drop of blood to be placed onto a spot on the USB stick. Any HIV in
the sample triggers an acidity change, which the chip transforms into an
electrical signal. This is sent to the USB stick, which shows the result on a
computer or electronic device.
 |
The
diagnostic test generates an electrical signal which can be read by a laptop or
handheld device, so could potentially be used by people in remote areas
|
Published in the journal Scientific Reports,
results showed the stick test was 95 percent accurate over 991 blood samples,
and the average time to produce a reading was 20.8 minutes.
Some 36 million people worldwide are infected
with the human deficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and the majority of
them live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Current AIDS drugs, called anti-retrovirals,
reduce virus levels in a patients blood to near zero.
But in some cases the drugs stop working -
sometimes because virus has developed resistance to them - and the first sign
of that would be a rise in a patient's so-called "viral load".
No comments :
Post a Comment