Coming Soon: Lab-in-Palm for Point-of-Care Blood Testing

Nanotechnology researchers from Yale, Cornell, and Harvard have collaborated to develop a microfluidic device that uses nanosensors to detect the presence of cancer biomarkers in blood. The scientists believe this humoral detection technology may bring blood testing to the bedside, avoiding the long turnaround time when clinicians need to use the hospital lab.

To overcome the challenge of whole blood detection, the researchers developed a novel device that acts as a filter, catching the biomarkers—in this case, antigens specific to prostate and breast cancer—on a chip while washing away the rest of the blood. Creating a buildup of the antigens on the chip allows for detection down to extremely small concentrations, on the order of picograms per milliliter, with 10 percent accuracy. This is the equivalent of being able to detect the concentration of a single grain of salt dissolved in a large swimming pool.
Until now, detection methods have only been able to determine whether or not a certain biomarker is present in the blood at sufficiently high concentrations for the detection equipment to give reliable estimates of its presence. "This new method is much more precise in reading out concentrations, and is much less dependent on the individual operator’s interpretation," Fahmy said [Tarek Fahmy, associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering at Yale].
In addition to relying on somewhat subjective interpretations, current tests are also labor intensive. They involve taking a blood sample, sending it to a lab, using a centrifuge to separate the different components, isolating the plasma and putting it through an hours-long chemical analysis. The whole process takes several days. In comparison, the new device is able to read out biomarker concentrations in a just a few minutes.
The new device could also be used to test for a wide range of biomarkers at the same time, from ovarian cancer to cardiovascular disease, Reed said. "The advantage of this technology is that it takes the same effort to make a million devices as it does to make just one. We’ve brought the power of modern microelectronics to cancer detection."

Yale press release: Scientists Use Nanosensors for First Time to Measure Cancer Biomarkers in Blood…
Abstract in Nature Nanotechnology: Label-free biomarker detection from whole blood