Columbia University in New York has developed something new in the hardware category that’s not only affordable, but can diagnose serious infectious diseases in people. It connects to a smartphone and can currently diagnose both HIV and syphilis. The tool uses disposable plastic cassettes that are loaded with HIV antibody detection reagents. But wait, there’s more.
Those same reagents can also detect treponemal-specific and non-treponemal antibodies. Antibodies typically present in people who are infected with syphilis. Those involved with the project are claiming this new hardware replaces costly tests which require over $18,000. The disposable sensor costs $34 to make, so that’s a whole lot of savings.
The way it works is that the user presses down on a negative pressure chamber inside and moves the sequence of reagents that are stored in these cassettes. The sensor itself plus into a smartphone’s audio jack enabling the transmission of data. It runs in about 15 minutes and screens multiple diseases. Just a prick of your blood and the reagents are good to go.
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