A team of researchers from Harvard, Stanford, and Florida Atlantic universities have taken a new approach to designing flexible paper-based diagnostic devices. Existing point of care diagnostic assays are limited in the techniques to spot pathogens, and so they only work on a narrow range of targets. The new devices recently published on in Nature Scientific Reports are able to use different modalities to identify a variety of pathogens, including the HIV virus, as well as E. coli, S. aureus, and other bacteria.
The team used cellulose paper and polyester films to create three different flexible devices, each having characteristics optimized for different diagnostic modalities. The paper microchips can be programmed, using antibodies and peptides, to work with all sorts of biological targets, allowing them to screen whole blood, plasma, and peritoneal dialysis effluent in a variety of clinical applications.
Study in Scientific Reports: Paper and Flexible Substrates as Materials for Biosensing Platforms to Detect Multiple Biotargets…
Source: Florida Atlantic University…