For years medical professionals have been testing people in remote areas of third world countries for communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and syphilis. This testing has always involved traveling with lots of expensive equipment, until now.
Sanford bioengineers have developed a credit card sized cassette that can detect infectious disease. The cassette is designed with an entry port where a small blood sample is deposited, and a series of vertical bars the blood is looped through. The bars are lined with material designed to detect the antibodies of these infectious diseases. After a 15 minute wait, the patient learns his or her diagnosis.
Devises such as this can increase the amount of people tested, diagnosed, and treated for communicable diseases in these remote regions.
Source:
For more information on bioengineering, check out SCIENCE SCREEN REPORT’s Volume 40 episode: BIOENGINEERING – Science by Design.
No comments:
Post a Comment