Imagine being able to detect a virus before it can affect you!
STMicroelectronics has developed and recently launched, an amazing ‘portable chip’ that detects influenza virus, including bird flu in human beings.
We are talking about a tiny chip that acts as a mini laboratory, that not only screens but identifies various genes and pathogens, giving genetic information about an infection, all with a single diagnostic test, within a couple of hours. It is also portable, allowing the diagnostic process to take place at the “point of need” and not in some remote laboratory.
Currently, there is nothing similar to this or as advanced as this existing. All other tests that are available in the market can only detect one strain at a time and it takes days or even weeks to obtain results.
According to the World Health Organization, this chip has the capability to differentiate between the human strains of Influenza A virus and B virus, mutated variants and drug resistant strains, including Avian Flu or H5N1 strain, although it is mainly a bird virus detector.
STMicro’s Asia Pacific chief executive says, “ST sees new high growth opportunities in the health care market, especially in areas like patient care.”
The whole process of obtaining patient samples such as human blood, serum or respiratory swabs and analyzing them, is all done on a single thumbnail-sized disposable chip.
This chip is named VereFlu and has been under Research and Development for more than a year, undergoing clinical trials at the National University Hospital in Singapore last year and is the world’s first “lab-on-chip” portable device. This is a joint venture between a medical diagnostics company, Veredus laboratories of Singapore and a microelectronics company, STMicroelectronics of Switzerland.
VereFlu is being described as a “breakthrough molecular diagnostic test that can detect infection with high accuracy and sensitivity.”
The advantages of saving on time and cost are obvious with this chip. But that is not all, this also reduces the risk of contamination which can occur in a traditional laboratory setting.
According to Associate Professor Raymond Lin, Head of Microbiology, National University Hospital in Singapore, this device is a “powerful weapon against future influenza pandemics.”
There could be many uses of this amazing minilab, one of which is at airports. It could prove to be extremely helpful due to the rapid identification process and is certain to control the spread of disease and help in getting quick treatment.
Researchers say that VereFlu will be most helpful to health care professionals and can assist them in monitoring mutations of various flu viruses and in identifying the main strain of the season quickly.
The success of this amazing chip has prompted both the companies involved to set up a joint laboratory in order to develop other new biomedical applications using the new technology for other infectious diseases, heart disease and oncology too.
With such a great development in the medical arena, the next step can only be chips that people can carry around and be warned when they are being attacked (by viruses of course.)
