US scientists develop new TB diagnostic chip

Biomedical engineers from the University of California, Davis, USA, today announced the development of a new liquid microchip that helps detect latent TB forms.

The chip is a more effective TB test device, giving results that are much faster and cheaper than any other device currently in use.

Ying Liu, a researcher working with Professor Alexanda Revzin at the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Davis), said that their test items are cheap, reusable and offer a variety of uses. Accurate results in real time.

Current TB diagnostic tests rely on interferon-gammma therapy (the gamma protein produced by the cells in the body when the virus attacks, to prevent the virus from growing). These commercial diagnostic tests often require a sample to be sent to the laboratory, and may be used only once.

Liu and Revzin used a new approach by coating a gold foil with short samples of a single strand of DNA, attached to the interferon-gamma. Then attach the piece of paper to a chip with tiny grooves of blood. If gamma interferons show up in blood samples attached to DNA, creating an electronic signal, doctors will now confirm them.

If high levels of gamma interferon are present, it is possible to diagnose that patient with latent TB infection.

Scientists have planned to improve the system so that liquid IC sensors and power indicator reading functions can be integrated in a single chip.

The latent tuberculosis application has been patented and scientists hope it will soon hit the market when it is approved by the National Founding Council.

According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of the world's population is currently infected with TB bacteria, an estimated disease that has claimed at least 1.5 million lives. worldwide every year.