First field trial for the “lab on a chip” successfully detected HIV

Researcher Samuel Sia Says Rwandan HIV Field Trial a Success
Posted by Roberta Seldon on August 1, 2011 3:58 AM

According to Samuel Sia, a biomedical engineer at Columbia University, the first field trial for the “lab on a chip” successfully detected HIV and syphilis among residents of Rwanda, The Washington Post reports.

The tests took about 20 minutes to produce results. According to a report published online by Nature Medicine, these kinds of tests could offer a quicker, easier and cheaper way to detect infectious diseases in developing countries.

“This is a big step,” Doris Rouse, a vice president at RTI International in North Carolina, told the Post. “What’s especially exciting about this device is that it’s rugged, easy to use and doesn’t require a lot of infrastructure or training,” she added.

These kinds of tests have actually been available for years, but many rely on a decades-old method called lateral flow. Very few lateral flow tests have proven reliable across multiple settings and types of infection. The new tests, however, “can be done outside the lab with all the same advantages and sensitivity [for detection,]” Rosanna Peeling, a diagnostics researcher at the London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine, told the Post...Continue Reading...