Hand-Held Lab-On-A-Chip Diagnoses HIV

A hand-held lab-on-a-chip diagnoses infectious diseases such as Human immunosuppressive virus (HIV) and syphilis at patients' bedsides.

Named the mChip (from mobile microfluidic chip), the integrated microfluidic-based diagnostic device—a lab-on-a-chip—can perform complex laboratory assays, and do so with such simplicity that these tests can be carried out in the most remote regions of the world.


Prof. Samuel K. Sia's lab at Columbia Engineering (New York, NY, USA) developed the mChip devices in collaboration with Claros Diagnostics Inc. (Woburn, MA, USA), a venture capital-backed startup that Sia cofounded in 2004. The cost of the chip is about US$1 and the entire instrument about $100.

In a paper published online in Nature Medicine on July 31, 2011, Prof. Sia and his colleagues presented field results on how microfluidics and nanoparticles could be successfully leveraged to produce a functional low-cost diagnostic device in extreme resource-limited settings. The authors wrote, "The chip had excellent performance in the diagnosis of HIV using only 1 μL of unprocessed whole blood and an ability to simultaneously diagnose HIV and syphilis with sensitivities and specificities that rival those of reference benchtop assays"

Prof. Sia and his team performed the testing in Rwanda during four years in partnership with Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health (New York, NY, USA) and three local nongovernmental organizations in Rwanda, targeting hundreds of patients.

"We have engineered a disposable credit card-sized device that can produce blood-based diagnostic results in minutes," said Prof. Sia. "The idea is to make a large class of diagnostic tests accessible to patients in any setting in the world, rather than forcing them to go to a clinic to draw blood and then wait days for their results."

The device allows blood checks for deadly infectious diseases that could benefit newborns and pregnant women especially in pockets where diagnostic tests are either not possible or not reachable. Results can be seen with the naked eye or with a low-cost detector.

Named one of the world's top young innovators for 2010 by MIT's Technology Review for his work in biotechnology and medicine, and by NASA as one of 10 innovators in human health and sustainability, Prof. Sia also received a Career award in 2008 from the National Science Foundation.

Related Links:
Columbia Engineering
Claros Diagnostics Inc.
Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health