Medical lab-on-a-chip runs 32 pathology tests at once

Diagnosing diseases early benefits patients and doctors. It enables treatment to slow disease progression and reduces the risk of complications, thereby improving long-term health outcomes.

With early diagnosis in front of mind, a team from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) research laboratory in Germany has used off-the-shelf components to construct a cost-effective, palm-sized device that can detect 32 different pathogens simultaneously.

To create their novel device, the researchers borrowed from the field of electronics, using field-effect transistors (FETs) as the basic concept.

The researchers used their device to test for interleukin-6 (IL-6), a protein produced in response to infections and tissue injuries. It’s a useful marker of immune system activation and can be elevated in inflammation, infection, autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers.

They found that using a ready-made nanoparticle kit designed for researchers to add gold nanoparticles that concentrated or localized the charge and amplified the voltage signal improved the device’s sensitivity.

The researchers say their cost-effective biosensing device has a range of potential applications, from monitoring the progress of immunotherapies in cancer patients to predicting the severity and course of a viral illness such as the flu or COVID-19.

Image source: Janićijević et al. (2024), Biosensors and Bioelectronics.