Print
Hits: 5371
Times Of India
06 Oct 2012
Researchers have used chemical trickery to give paper disease–detecting capabilities for ailments like malaria and diabetes

A current focus in global health research is to make medical tests that are not just cheap, but virtually free. There are a lot of groups working on such devices. The aim is to bring affordable healthcare to the millions of people who have access to none. One such strategy is to start with paper – one of humanity’s oldest technologies – and build a device similar to a home–based pregnancy test that might work for malaria, diabetes or any other disease. The device should also have the capacity to be mass produced to drive the costs furthere down to almost zero. AUniversity of Washington bioengineering researchers has recently developed just such a way to make regular paper stick to medically interesting molecules. The work produced a chemical trick to make paper–based diagnostics using plain paper, the kind found at office supply stores around the world. "We wanted to go for the simplest, cheapest starting material, and give it more capability," said Daniel Ratner, a UW assistant professor of bioengineering and lead author of the paper recently published in the American Chemical Society journal Langmuir. "We also wanted to make the system as independent of the end applications as possible, something any researcher could plug into." Many paper–based diagnostics are made from nitrocellulose, a sticky membrane used in pregnancy tests and by medical researchers to detect proteins, DNA or antibodies in the human immune system. Ratner hopes to replace that specialised membrane with cheap, ubiquitous paper, and to use it for any type of medical test – not just the big, biological molecules. The UW technique uses minimal equipment or knowhow. The researchers used a cheap, industrial solvent called divinyl sulfone that can be bought by the gallon and has been used for decades as an adhesive.

Aarogya news

Ratner’s group discovered they could dilute the chemical in water, carefully control the acidity, then pour it into a Ziploc bag and add a stack of paper, shake for a couple of hours, and finally rinse the paper and let it dry.

The dried paper feels smooth to the touch but is sticky to all kinds of chemicals that could be of medical interest: proteins, antibodies and DNA, for example, as well as sugars and the small–molecule drugs used to treat most medical conditions.

"We want to develop something to not just ask one single question but ask many personal health questions," Ratner said.

"‘Is there protein in the urine? Is this person diabetic? Do they have malaria or influenza?’"

To test their idea, the researchers ran the treated paper through an inkjet printer where the cartridge ink had been replaced with biomolecules, in this case a small sugar called galactose that attaches to human cells.

They printed the biomolecules onto the sticky paper in an invisible pattern.

The paper was then put through acontrolled acid wash cycle.

Aarogya news

Exposing that paper to fluorescent ricin, a poison that sticks to galactose, showed that the poison was present.

Now that they have proven their concept, Ratner said, they hope other groups will use the paper–based method to develop diagnostic tests that are actually useful in detecting different medical ailments and be cheap enough to be mass deployed in developing nations around the world.

The treated paper can be used to do quick and accurate medical tests. Here, a biomolecule printed in the pattern of the UW mascot binds to a toxic molecule, showing that the toxin is present

Disclaimer: The news story on this page is the copyright of the cited publication. This has been reproduced here for visitors to review, comment on and discuss. This is in keeping with the principle of ’Fair dealing’ or ’Fair use’. Visitors may click on the publication name, in the news story, to visit the original article as it appears on the publication’s website.