The University of California at San Diego http://ucsd.edu was awarded $300,000 from the National Science Foundation’s division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems www.nsf.gov/div/indexjsp?div-cbet to develop a portable device with a disposable “Cartridge Lab-on-a Chip” to help people experiencing a viral or bacterial infection or an allergic reaction.
Shaya Fainman, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering www.ece.ucsd.edu at UCSD said, “Our vision is to create a disposable chip that you will be able to buy over the counter to be integrated with receptors that will work on fluids from the body. Fainman reports that the spectrometer equipped box would initially cost a few hundred dollars, but the cost will come down once the box is mass produced using nanoprint technologies.
The professor’s current work stems from his collaboration with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Optical Centers program on Optifluidics Integration. Together with researchers at Caltech, UC San Diego, Harvard, and Stanford, Fainman developed a way to integrate microfluidics (small volumes of fluid) with optical and nanophotonic devices on the same chip.
Fainman’s collaborator from the UC San Diego School of Medicine http://som.ucsd.edu Dr. Victor Nizet will serve as a co-principal investigator to help with the most recent advances in developing biomarkers
The miniaturized lab-on-chip system will connect to a mobile phone via a USB port and/or wireless link. The patient draws a drop of blood or other bodily fluids to put on the disposable microfluidic chip to determine the presence of certain biomarkers.
The mobile phone serving as an electronic interface and controller will rapidly perform the statistical data analysis using two measurements and well established statistical pattern algorithms. In the future, new algorithms will be developed along with electronic interfaces for communication and to control the system.
The system still require a patient to communicate with their physician who will then take a look at the results. At this point, the physician will determine what is needed and may provide a prescription or perhaps ask the patient to come in for further tests. Eventually the device will be developed so that physicians will be able to use the system at the point-of-care.
In addition, to the $300,000 grant awarded by NSF, another $50,000 in funding was awarded to Fainman through the Calit2 Strategic Research Opportunities (CSRO) http://csro.calit2.net program.