Measles is one of the most infectious airborne viruses in the world. An economical and effective vaccine is available, but measles is common in developing countries and sporadic outbreaks also occur in developed countries, mainly due to unvaccinated people. New research published in Advanced Functional Materials describes a new point-of-care biodetection device capable of detecting measles virions in human saliva, which may aid in efforts to control viral spread.
The experiments validated the accuracy of the lab-on-a-chip device, which is smaller than a 1-cent coin or a U.S. quarter. The device can provide a convenient platform for the diagnosis of measles and serve as a guideline for designing new microfluidic biodetection systems.
Our technology demonstrated for the first time the synergistic operation of different microdevices based on surface acoustic waves on the same chip, in the context of on-chip laboratory biodetection. In this way we have been able to drastically improve the detection limit of our sensors, potentially allowing applications of early diagnosis at the point of attention. “
Marco Cecchini, PhD, senior author, senior researcher at the Nanoscience Institute of the Italian National Research Council and CTO and co-founder of Intelligent Acoustics Systems in Italy
Source:
Magazine reference:
Agostini, M., et al. (2022) Surface acoustic wave (SAW) induced mixing improves virus detection: application to measles detection in whole human saliva with a SAW-On-a-Chip laboratory. Advanced functional materials. doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202201958.