Researchers have invented a cheap, portable, microchip-based test for diagnosing type-1 diabetes that could speed up diagnosis and enable studies of how the disease develops.
Described in a paper published online July 13 in Nature Medicine, the test employs nanotechnology to detect type-1 diabetes outside hospital settings. The handheld microchips distinguish between the two main forms of diabetes mellitus, which are both characterized by high blood-sugar levels but have different causes and treatments. Until now, making the distinction has required a slow, expensive test available only in sophisticated health-care settings.
“With the new test, not only do we anticipate being able to diagnose diabetes more efficiently and more broadly, we will also understand diabetes better — both the natural history and how new therapies impact the body,” said Brian Feldman, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology and the Bechtel Endowed Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine.
The old, slow test detected the auto-antibodies using radioactive materials, took several days, could only be performed by highly-trained lab staff and cost several hundred dollars per patient. In contrast, the microchip uses no radioactivity, produces results in minutes, and requires minimal training to use. Each chip, expected to cost about $20 to produce, can be used for upward of 15 tests. The microchip also uses a much smaller volume of blood than the older test; instead of requiring a lab-based blood draw, it can be done with blood from a finger prick.
The microchip relies on a fluorescence-based method for detecting the antibodies. The team’s innovation is that the glass plates forming the base of each microchip are coated with an array of nanoparticle-sized islands of gold, which intensify the fluorescent signal, enabling reliable antibody detection. The test was validated with blood samples from people newly diagnosed with diabetes and from people without diabetes. Both groups had the old test and the microchip-based test performed on their blood.
“There is great potential to capture people before they develop the disease, and prevent diabetes or prevent its complications by starting therapy early,” Feldman said. “But the old test was prohibitive for that type of thinking because it was so costly and time-consuming.”
Stanford University and the researchers have filed for a patent on the microchip, and the researchers also are working to launch a startup company to help get the method approved by the FDA and bring it to market, both in the United States and in parts of the world where the old test is too expensive and difficult to use.
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The above content was originally derived from and/or published on: http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/07/researchers-invent-nanotech-microchip-to-diagnose-type-1-diabete.html