Developing a microfluidic detector for bird flu involved researchers with a diverse range of skills and nationalities.

Although all six authors of a recent Nature Medicine paper describing a microfluidic device for detecting the deadly avian flu H5N1 virus worked at institutes run by the A*STAR organization in Singapore, they came from remarkably different backgrounds. Juergen Pipper, Pavel Neuzil, Yi Zhang and Lukas Novak were based at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, whereas Lisa Ng and Masafumi Inoue worked nearby at the Genome Institute of Singapore and the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology, respectively. The team also had a truly international flavour, comprising researchers from Germany, Japan, Singapore, China and the Czech Republic (Nature Med. 13, 1259–1263; 2007).

Pipper and colleagues developed the surface chemistry and microfluidic environment for the device while Inoue optimized the bioassay, Ng contributed expertise in infectious diseases and Neuzil, an electrical engineer, perfected the fabrication and electronics for the microfluidic chip. They were all brought together when Pipper and Neuzil worked with Winnie Chua of Exploit Technologies — the commercialization arm of A*STAR — to file patents related to their work on microfluidics, and she suggested that they contact Ng and Inoue.

The new lab-on-a-chip device uses an aqueous suspension of tiny magnetic particles to extract viral RNA, transport, mix and then detect the cDNA products amplified in a process known as the polymerase chain reaction. The device is 2,000–5,000% cheaper than commercially available tests, and detection from a throat swab takes less than 28 minutes because it requires only nanolitres of process volumes.

Pipper admits that it was not easy to find a “common language” given the very different backgrounds of all the researchers. “For a successful collaboration,” he advises, “you sometimes have to restrain your ego because you will not be able to accomplish your goals alone”.