Medical - Results in seconds

Detecting parasites in biological or medical samples has never been faster than when using a dime-sized microchip developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Purdue University. For years, chips have been able to produce test results that are typically gathered from full-scale laboratories, but now they can produce them in three to four seconds. Using a technique called rapid electrokinetic patterning that relies on light and electromagnetic fields, researchers can detect low concentrations of parasites instantly because they group together in a stimulated region of the chip. This increases the chip's performance and efficiency, allowing the device to conduct biological and applied medical and bio-detection studies at unprecedented rates. A paper describing this work has been published in the Journal Lab on a Chip at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2012/lc/c2lc40662d. —Jennifer Brouner