in a drop of blood

Pocket test measures 50 things in a drop of blood

December 21, 2012

V-chip assay (credit: The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center)

A new device about the size of a business card could allow health care providers to test for insulin and other blood proteins, cholesterol, and even signs of viral or bacterial infection all at the same time — with one drop of blood.

Preliminary tests of the V-chip, created by scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, were published by Nature Communications.

“The V-Chip could make it possible to bring tests to the bedside, remote areas, and other types of point-of-care needs,” said Nanomedicine faculty member Lidong Qin, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator.

“V-Chip is accurate, cheap, and portable. It requires only a drop of a sample, not a vial of blood, and can do 50 different tests in one go.”

Similar assays are typically done using heavy, large, complex equipment such as mass spectrometers, or require fluoroscopy analysis, which must also be done in a lab./.../