Lab-on-Chip: an electronic chip that tells you if you're ill

Imagine being able to diagnose if a patient has a certain virus or disease while he's sitting in the doctor's waiting room? It could happen sooner than you might think as a result of one of our new products – Lab-on-Chip.

We've been developing it for the past year in partnership with Mobidiag of Finland, and it already has the capacity to diagnose disease. Essentially it works by holding strands of DNA and matching them against the characteristics of given, known pathogens. It then compares the DNA and if it recognises similarities, it tells you if specific microorganisms have been detected.

The chip runs on our In-Check™ platform and uses a diagnostic panel from Mobidiag that identifies 10 sepsis-causing bacterial species, as well as strains of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from positive blood culture samples.

Faster results, better treatment choices

As well as being incredibly small, Lab-on-Chip can provide faster, more reliable results at a fraction of the cost and complexity of conventional lab systems. It will enable early detection of disease, resulting in better treatment choices for patients and lower overall costs to national healthcare systems.

"We believe that such affordable, user-friendly, and portable devices are set to make a critical difference in a growing number of diagnostic applications," said Anton Hofmeister, Group Vice-President and General Manager for ST's Microfluidic Division. "The unique combination of ST's leading-edge semiconductor and MEMS expertise with Mobidiag's know-how in microbiological diagnostics opens new possibilities for effective detection and treatment of infectious diseases at the point of need."

Greater accuracy, reduced risks

Crucially, Lab-on-Chip has been designed to optimize the choice of antibiotic therapy using results from Gram-staining – an empirical way of differentiating bacterial species. As a result, it should also reduce the risks of antibiotic misuse, as well as help physicians to select the right treatment as early as possible. The risks of cross-contamination inherent in conventional analysis methods are minimized too, as the analysis is performed on a chip in an encapsulated, self-contained unit.

"Early detection of systemic bacterial infections is essential for the successful management of antibiotic therapy," said Jaakko Pellosniemi, CEO of Mobidiag. "We look forward to addressing the needs of laboratories that perform millions of blood cultures every year in our target markets."

Detecting bird flu

We're now developing the Lab-on-Chip further to detect a specific disease in humans – bird flu – in conjunction with the Singapore company Veredus Laboratories.

They're developing an application, using our In-Check™ platform, that identifies whether a patient is infected with the avian flu (H5N1) or a subtype of influenza A or B, in a single test – instead of the many tests needed currently. To be available in time for the next flu season, the single test application will be a substantial breakthrough in rapid identification of the infectious agent to limit the spread of the disease.

"In light of the risk of a worldwide flu pandemic, and to limit its potential global impact, we aim to provide health care professionals with the capability to quickly differentiate avian flu or severe flu strains from milder strains by their subtypes," says Dr. Rosemary Tan, CEO of Veredus. "We are also actively developing chips to detect dengue, malaria, West Nile, yellow fever, typhoid fever, Japanese encephalitis, and other diseases, and we anticipate that our products will greatly improve treatment choices."

Based on the encouraging results so far and following extensive testing, the Veredus application, running on our In-Check™ platform, is expected to be commercially available to health care providers in the second half of 2006.