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From: Brumar893/2/2010 7:46:37 PM
   of 3816
 
Tiny Chip Made of Paper Diagnoses Diseases and Costs Just a Penny Puts medical diagnostic tools at the fingertips of everyday folk

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 02.25.2010 at 12:01 pm 7 Comments


Paper Lab The prototype of the paper lab-on-a-chip looks similar to this earlier Whitesides Lab device, except that it would test blood instead of urine. Whitesides Lab
Existing lab-on-a-chip designs can put the power of testing in the palm of your hand, but an upcoming model may represent the cheapest and most colorful one yet. A Harvard University chemist has created a prototype "chip" technology out of paper that could help diagnose HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases for just a penny each time, according to CNN.

A drop of blood on one side of the paper chip results in a colorful tree-like pattern that tells physicians or nurses whether a person has certain diseases. Water-repellent comic-book ink helps channel the blood into the tree-like pattern, as several layers of treated paper react to the blood and create the telling colors.

George Whitesides, the Harvard chemist, said that the colors can also reveal the severity of a disease rather than just saying if a person has it or not. It's not the most sophisticated lab-on-a-chip, but that's the point -- many of these could become cheap diagnostic tools for a developing world that often lacks physicians and clinics.

popsci.com
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