When we get sick, our doctors take a blood test, send it to the lab and wait for the results. In the near future, however, doctors may perform these tests almost instantly on a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.
![Two system configurations for routing a drop of liquid created by a computer for diagnostic tests of a 'laboratory on a chip' whose efficiency is much higher than the manual diagnostic methods commonly used in laboratories today. The software was developed by researchers Shiyan Hu and Chen Liao from the University of Michigan. [Courtesy: Shiyan Hu and Chen Liao]](https://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content3/2014/05/alabinyourpo.gif)
Labs-on-a-chip hold great promise for reducing the cost of medical diagnosis while expanding access to health services. Now, scientists have succeeded in developing software that can make these devices even more powerful: by performing dozens of tests simultaneously on the same single biochip.
When we get sick, our doctors take a blood test, send it to the lab and wait for the results. In the near future, however, doctors may perform these tests almost instantly on a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.
These "labs on a chip" can be not only fast - you can get the results in minutes - but they are also cheap and portable. It will be possible to use them in remote areas that are many kilometers away from a clinic or hospital in order to perform laboratory tests, ranging from the presence of HIV viruses to the diagnosis of diabetes. At the same time, despite their great power, these devices may be much more efficient, says Shiyan Hu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University.
Typically, a lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is capable of no more than just one or two tests. This is due to the fact that the chips are designed manually, says the lead researcher. If the devices could be manufactured using computer-based design, then dozens of tests could be performed on a single drop of blood. "Within a very short time it is possible to carry out tests that shed light on many health data," notes the researcher. "It will literally be like an entire laboratory on a tiny chip."
"We developed software that can design the hardware," explains the lead researcher. The researchers' work focused on efficiently routing the drop of blood, or drop of other liquid, through each of the probe points on the chip without causing contamination of the chip or the individual probes. "It took us 4 years to develop the software, but the actual production of the device should be cheap," adds the chief researcher. "The materials that make up our new device are very cheap, and the results of the test are much more reliable than those of the usual laboratory tests." The researchers expect, eventually, to manufacture the biochip themselves with the help of the developed software.
Their work was featured on the cover of the March issue of the scientific journal IEEE Transactions on Nanobiosciences.
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