Article Date: 10 Dec 2011 - 0:00 PST
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Speed can save lives especially in the case of ?blood poisoning. The more quickly and directly doctors recognize and treat ?sepsis, the greater the patient's chances of survival. With the help of a new ?biochip, physicians will now be able to analyze blood within their own ?practice.
Is the patient suffering from blood poisoning? To answer this question, the ?doctor draws a blood sample and sends it to a central laboratory for testing. ?This takes up valuable time, which could cost the patient his life. In future, ?physicians will be able to analyze blood there and then and have the results ?within twenty minutes.
This is made possible by a biochip, developed by ?scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM ?in Freiburg. "To analyze the biochip we have also designed a fully automatic ?device to carry out all the examination steps," explains Dr. Albrecht ?Brandenburg, group manager at the IPM. "All the doctor has to do is place the ?sample in the apparatus and wait for the results."??Meanwhile, within the ?device there's plenty going on: it starts by preparing the blood sample. Red ?blood cells are separated from the blood and the plasma that remains is guided ?onto the biochip.
When patients are suffering from sepsis, their immune system ?reacts by producing certain proteins. The biochip uses these in its diagnosis: ?there are antibodies positioned on the chip which fit these proteins like a key ?fits a lock. If the proteins are present in the blood, the antibodies fish them ?out of the fluid and bind them to the chip. But how does the apparatus know if ?proteins have been caught? "The chip is rinsed with a solution containing the ?appropriate antibodies, which have in turn been marked with a fluorescent dye," ?explains IPM scientist Dr. Manuel Kemmler. "These bind to the proteins meaning ?antibodies, protein and marked antibodies are all firmly linked to each other ?and to the chip's surface. When the chip is illuminated, the dye lights up."
The ?apparatus sees lots of little illuminated dots that show the protein was in the ?blood. If the patient is healthy, however, the chip remains dark.??The researchers can even test for different proteins at the same time in one cycle. ?This is done by placing various different catcher molecules on the chip, to ?which specific molecules in the blood attach themselves. A cunning selection of ?proven protein markers allows the scientists to obtain additional important ?information about the severity and cause of the illness.
Together with colleagues from a university hospital, the researchers have already successfully ?tested prototypes of the device and biochip. Each biochip can only be used once so they have to be affordable. "We predict that in the long run, with ?production on a large enough scale, each chip will cost no more than one euro," ?says Brandenburg. There are various possible applications: other conditions such ?as heart attacks or cancers can also be investigated this way. What's more, the ?chip facilitates doping and urine testing as well as the quality assessment of ?foodstuffs.
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Source: Fraunhofer-GesellschaftVisit our blood / hematology section for the latest news on this subject. Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
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11 Dec. 2011.
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