New method paves the way for rapid and cheap detection of infectious agents

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I am cautiously optimistic about this technology’s ability to detect a range of pathogens in real environments. By combining molecular biology with electronics, says the latest author, we are paving the way for a fast and cheap detection tool. Vincent PellichanoLecturer at Department of Microbiology, Oncology and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet. continued:

Using affordable, mass-produced electronics, the new method has the potential to serve as the basis for developing a test that costs around SEK 50 and gives an answer within an hour.

Based on previous research

This work is a further development of previous research that led to a diagnostic test for COVID-19. The researchers are now investigating how the new method can be implemented in healthcare and also plan to investigate other areas of use such as environmental monitoring, food safety and antibiotic resistance testing.

The study is funded primarily by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The authors have filed a patent application for the advanced technology. Important collaborative partners are Rutgers University and the Stanford Genome Technology Center.

Publishing

“A Digital Test for the Rapid Electronic Evaluation of Clinical Pathogens Using DNA Nanobheres”, Mohamed Tayeb, Donal Barrett, Giggs van Riel, Shujing Liu, Bjorn Rhenius, Kurt Scharf, Peter Griffin, Lars M. Steinmetz, Mehdi Javanmar, Vicente Pellicano, Science advancesonline xx, doi: xx