Soon inexpensive paper-based home test for cancer, malaria

In a few years could be tested for cancer or malaria as easy as testing blood sugar or take a pregnancy test, according to a recent study.

Chemists at Ohio State University develop paper strips to detect the diseases such as cancer and malaria at a price of 50 cents per tape.

Abraham-Badu Tawiah researcher explains that the idea is that people can apply a drop of blood on the paper at home and send it to a laboratory on a regular basis and consult a doctor if the test is positive.

The researchers found that the evidence just was even a month after the blood sample was taken, showing that they could work for the people living in remote areas.

Badu-Tawiah documents developed as a way to get cheap malaria diagnosis in the hands of people in rural areas of Africa and Southeast Asia, where the disease kills hundreds of thousands of people and infected hundreds of millions every year.

He and his colleagues report that the test of a disease can be adapted to detect, for the human body produces antibodies, including ovarian cancer and cancer of the colon.

The patent-pending technology to could make the diagnosis of the disease to people who need it most - those without afford regular access to a doctor or not regular visits person said Badu-Tawiah.

"We want to give the people. If you look at all of your health and you have to provide directly on the state, then you do not want to wait until you get sick to go to the hospital. You can test as many times as you want "he said.

Technology as a "lab on a chip" diagnostic today, but plastic, "chip" is made of plain white paper glued and double-sided. By a typical inkjet printer

Instead of ordinary ink but researchers use wax ink channels and reservoirs in the paper to describe. The wax penetrates into the paper and form a tight barrier for water to capture and hold between the layers, the blood sample. A sheet of paper 8.5 x 11 inches can contain dozens of individual tests that can be cut into individual strips then, each slightly larger than a postage stamp.

"To take the test, everything would have to do a person to a drop of blood is placed on the paper strip, half fold, put it in an envelope and send it," Badu-Tawiah said.
The technology works differently than other medical diagnoses on paper as pregnancy tests, which are coated with enzymes or gold nanoparticles to make the color change of the paper. However, the paper contains small chemical synthesis of probes which carry a positive charge. These are "ionic" probes the sensitive detection of a mass spectrometer allow cells.
The licensed technology to a medical diagnostics company of the University for Development and Badu-Tawiah hope. On test strips in a clinical setting within three years
Meanwhile, he and his colleagues are working to make them more sensitive tests, so that people could potentially be used non-invasively with saliva or urine test material instead of blood.

The study appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.