A team of researchers headed by scientists at University of California, Santa Cruz has developed a chip-based device that uses optical detection to spot Ebola and other viruses. The test identifies the RNA of the viral pathogens directly, without having to make DNA copies of the viral RNA as is done for PCR testing.
The device has two separate chips, including a microfluidic one that prepares the sample and an optofluidic one that does the actual detection. The microfluidic component uses a silicon polymer as the material within which channels guide the sample to different processing points. The viral RNA is isolated by having a synthetic DNA molecule that snaps together with the particular viral RNA. The DNA molecules are themselves attached to tiny magnetic beads that are then pulled by a magnet to grab the RNA molecules. The result is processed further to release the molecules and tag them with fluorescent markers before being transferred to the optical detection chip where the presence of the RNA is finally confirmed.
The system can spot the Ebola virus at low concentrations comparable to PCR and much lower than any other chip-based system. It is also able to quantify the viral concentration of a given sample over a scale more than six orders of magnitude in size.
Study in Nature Scientific Reports: Optofluidic analysis system for amplification-free, direct detection of Ebola infection…
Via: UC Santa Cruz…
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