New Type 1 Diabetes Test is Fast, Cheap, and Easy to Use

A new, portable, microchip-based test for type 1 diabetes has been invented that is less expensive, faster, and easier to use than old testing methods. 

The current radioimmunoassay lab method use radioactive materials to detect auto-antibodies—cells which attack patient’s insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, causing diabetes— cost hundreds of dollars and require highly trained lab technicians to administer.
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The new chip test, however, uses no radioactivity, can be administered in any setting with minimal training, and yields results in minutes. It also requires only a finger-prick worth of blood to conduct the test, rather than the vials drawn for older testing methods.

Each microchip—expected to cost roughly $20 to manufacture and good for up to 15 tests—uses a fluorescence-based method of detection, amplified by the chip’s glass plates and microscopic points of gold.

The chip’s results were validated using blood samples from newly-diagnosed individuals. Participants’ blood samples were used in both the new chip-based method and old testing method.

The inventors are currently seeking approval from the FDA to bring the device to market.

“With the new test, not only do we anticipate being able to diagnose diabetes more efficiently and more broadly, we will also understand diabetes better—both the natural history and how new therapies impact the body,” researchers wrote.

–Michael Potts

References

Zhang B, Kumar RB, Dai H, Feldman BJ. A plasmonic chip for biomarker discovery and diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Nature Medicine. 2014 July 6 [epub ahead of pring] doi:10.1038/nm.3619.

Stanford Medicine. Researchers invent nanotech microchip to diagnose type-1 diabetes [press release]. July 13, 2014. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/07/researchers-invent-nanotech-microchip-to-diagnose-type-1-diabete.html. Accessed July 14, 2014.