Technical Report abstract
Nature Medicine 13, 1259 - 1263 (2007)
Published online: 23 September 2007 | doi:10.1038/nm1634
Catching bird flu in a droplet
Juergen Pipper1, Masafumi Inoue2, Lisa F-P Ng3, Pavel Neuzil1,4, Yi Zhang1,4 & Lukas Novak1,4
It is assumed that a timely mass administration of antiviral drugs, backed by quarantines and social distancing, could contain a nascent influenza epidemic at its source, provided that the first clusters of cases were localized within a short time. However, effective routine surveillance may be impossible in countries lacking basic public health resources. For a global containment strategy to be successful, low-cost, easy-to-use handheld units that permit decentralized testing would be vital. Here we present a microfluidic platform that can detect the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 in a throat swab sample by using magnetic forces to manipulate a free droplet containing superparamagnetic particles. In a sequential process, the viral RNA is isolated, purified, preconcentrated by 50,000% and subjected to ultrafast real-time RT-PCR. Compared to commercially available tests, the bioassay is equally sensitive and is 440% faster and 2,000–5,000% cheaper.
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, #04-01, Singapore 138669.
- Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, 61 Biopolis Drive, The Proteos, Singapore 138673.
- Genome Institute of Singapore, 60 Biopolis Street, The Genome, #02-01, Singapore 138672.
- Present addresses: Institute of Microelectronics, 11 Science Park Road, Science Park II, Singapore 117685 (P.N); Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA (Y.Z.); Czech Technical University, Technická 2, CZ-16627 Prague 6, Czech Republic (L.N.).
Correspondence to: Juergen Pipper1 e-mail: jpipper@ibn.a.star.edu.sg
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