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Implantable Lab-on-a-chip for Blood Testing

Reporter: Danut Dragoi, PhD
There is a short history of blood testing using small amounts of blood, less than 1mL, see the link in here, or even MIT’s Portable ‘lab on a chip’ that could speed blood tests. MIT produced a micro-pump that assures portability, efficiency, in routine or combat conditions, see link here  or the Ten-Minute Blood Test with the goal of rapidly identify cancer proteins in a drop of blood done about seven years ago.
As described in here,  scientists from the EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne or, in English, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) have developed an implantable blood testing laboratory that provides an immediate analysis of compounds in the body. The device will allow for a greater level of personalized care than traditional blood tests currently provide. The miniaturized device is just a few cubic millimeters in volume but includes five sensors and a radio transmitter.
Outside the body, a battery patch provides a 1/10 watt of power through the patient’s skin. A tiny electrical coil in the chip receives the power from the patch.
The implant emits radio waves over a safe frequency. The patch collects the data and transmits it via Bluetooth to the patient’s cell phone, which then sends it to a physician over the cellular network.
Implanted just beneath the skin, the chip can detect the concentration of up to five proteins and organic acids in the blood simultaneously. Each sensor is coated with an enzyme that reacts with a targeted substance, such as lactate, glucose, or adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
The enzymes currently being tested are good for about a month and a half, which is already long enough for many applications.

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The device is very easy to remove and replace the implant, since it’s so small. The implant could be used in many applications, from chemotherapy to continuously monitor a patient’s drug tolerance, to chronic illness where the chip could monitor for problems — and send alerts — before symptoms emerge. The researchers hope the system will be commercially available within four years. The authors of the device, lab-on-a-chip for blood testing do not give details about how it is working. Since the device is based on sensing electrical signals at the interface body fluids/and specialized electrochemical bio-sensors, the tiny sensors are parts of the nanotechnology development in bio-engineering. The link in here  shows the fabrication of integrated electrochemical sensors as an important step towards realizing fully integrated and truly wireless platforms for many local, real-time sensing applications. Micro/nanoscale patterning of small area electrochemical sensor surfaces enhances the sensor performance to overcome the limitations resulting from their small surface area and thus is the key to the successful miniaturization of integrated platforms. The results demonstrate the advantages of using micro- and nano-fabrication techniques for the miniaturization and optimization of modern sensing platforms that employ well-established electronic measurement techniques.

Applications of lab-on-a-chip are discussed in here.  Clinical medicine greatly benefits from lab-on-chip technology as it suites for drug tests, tests for observing pandemics, glucose monitoring, diabetic control, diagnosis of diseases and numerous other tests. Lab-on-chip devices enhance numerous bio-medical tests that entail

• mixing,
• analysis and
• separation of samples,

which usually consist of cell suspensions, nucleic acids, proteins, etc. Analytical, electrical, or optical detection methods are possible. The electrical detection methods depend exclusively on the polar properties of the molecules of the liquid samples. For example, carbon dioxide levels, oxygen levels, or pH values can be measured electrochemically. On the contrary, most analytical or optical techniques require labeling, which entails chemoluminescence, fluorescence, or radioactive markers. Most separation methods of lab-on-chip systems are miniaturized approaches of larger ones.

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