Lab on microchip for better healthcare and easier blood monitoring

Healthcare continues to remain a major area of concern for people living in smaller cities the world over, big laboratories with all the latest technology and machines used to test and report the health and diagnose various diseases, restricted to big cities. But now the time has begun to change. To help all such people living on the countryside and far from the basic health facilities, an entire new handheld laboratory has been designed. You won't believe, but Samuel K Sia and his team at Columbia Engineering, have made this possible with the help of a mobile microfluidic chip (mChip). This chip, of the size of a credit card, can easily and accurately interpret your blood tests. The best thing about this technology is that the test result can be known within a few minutes unlike the traditional tests that usually take days.

mChip

This new chip is a breakthrough in diagnosing some serious diseases like AIDS, where timely results can be very helpful. The chip may be a boon for African countries like Rwanda, where HIV prevalence is very high. With timely diagnosis of the disease among children and especially pregnant women, the disease can be checked from transmission and spread. It has been seen that in such countries, due to lack of proper health services, such diseases remain unchecked. Thanks to mChip, the problem can be tackled to a large extent.

International Organizations like WHO, Gates Foundation are highly supportive of this chip. In the times to come, the test will become much cheaper with the mChip. It will save the cost of sending the blood samples from remote areas to big cities where the sample is tested presently. This further saves the money of both government and common man. Seeing all the merits of this chip, one may call this invention a revolution in the area of medicine and research.

Now, the time is not far when most of the governments around the world will start giving recognition to this tech product. Once in use, this technology will save many people from fatal diseases like HIV and AIDS and others would get timely treatment. It will surely help in the prevention of diseases, especially in the developing and underdeveloped world where healthcare system is still a far cry.

Via: IBTimes