Scientists in Singapore say they have invented a quick and cheap bird flu test in a hand held kit that can detect the deadly H5N1 virus in under 30 minutes.
The innovation is reported in the journal Nature Medicine and is the work of Dr Juergen Pipper and colleagues at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
The device relies on two technologies. One is a microfluid platform that manipulates a droplet from a throat swab using magnetic forces that act on paramagnetic particles in the droplet, and the other is a lab technique called real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCT).
Combined in a easy to use hand held device, the two technologies allow the scientist to take a throat swab, isolate, purify and amplify the viral RNA, and then scan it to see if it contains H5N1.
Successful containment of a potential global bird flu pandemic will depend, said the researchers, on rapid diagnosis of the first clusters of cases. But this would be virtually impossible in countries lacking basic public health resources, where samples would have to sent to centralized labs for testing.
A handheld device that is cheap, reliable and easy to use would enable local testing for H5N1.
The researchers concluded in their study that the “minilab” prototype is just as sensitive as the commercially available tests, about 440 per cent faster, and between 2,000 and 5,000 per cent cheaper.
The device could also be adapted to detect HIV, Hepatitis B and SARS, wrote the scientists.
According to Bloomberg news, Pipper said in a telephone interview that the device weighs about 200 grams and is “about the size of a Rubik’s cube” and a test would cost in the region of 20 to 50 cents.
Real time PCR (RT-PCR) or quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a variation of the standard PCR method used to quantify DNA or RNA. Using a technique called “sequence specific primers”, it determines the relative number of copies of a particular DNA or RNA sequence in a sample.
The amount of amplified RNA is measured at each stage of the PCR cycle which includes melting, annealment, and extension.
The deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu is currently only passed on to humans from infected birds.
So far it has killed 200 people worldwide, and experts suggest it is only a matter of time before the virus mutates into a form that can pass from human to human and when it does there will be a world pandemic resulting in millions of deaths.
“Catching bird flu in a droplet.”
Juergen Pipper, Masafumi Inoue, Lisa F-P Ng, Pavel Neuzil, Yi Zhang, and Lukas Novak.
Nature Medicine Published online: 23 September 2007.
doi:10.1038/nm1634
Click here for more information about Real Time PCR Research (Ion Channel Media Group site).
Written by: Catharine Paddock