Tiny silicon chip detects C-Reactive Protein in as little as three minutes.
In that miniaturization based on microfluidics is an emerging future development area for medical diagnostics, Emmanuel Delamarche and Luc Gervais from IBM Research (Switzerland) have developed a tiny chip based on silicon that could be used to diagnose dozens of diseases. The chip draws a small drop of blood via capillary action (small channels under its own force). By way of an array of antibody molecules that are designed to latch on to the protein-based molecular markers of disease in blood, the chip then identifies markers of disease. This miniaturized lab on a chip assesses C-Reactive Protein, a marker of inflammation, in as little as three minutes.
