Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis

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Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis

Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a Microfluidic Device that can diagnose Lyme Disease in as little as 15 minutes. The Device is particularly accurate in identifying antibody biomarkers that are present during early stage Lyme disease, raising hopes that it could be useful in detecting cases of early infection in a doctor’s office, leading to timely treatment.

Lymedisease, which is spread by infected ticks, is incredibly common. Approximately300,000 Americans are diagnosed with the Disease each year, and if leftuntreated it can result in serious neurological and cardiac symptoms. Thedisease is difficult to spot, as many of the early symptoms are similar tothose found with other conditions.

Diagnosingand treating the Disease early is important in achieving good patient outcomes,but the current diagnostic tests require both an ELISA and a western blot,which are cumbersome, take a while to perform, and require trained laboratoryspecialists. Moreover, the accuracy of these tests in identifying early casesof Lyme Disease is quite poor.

Zoomed photo of fluid moving through a small channel in the new Microfluidic chip.
To address these issues, the Columbia researchers developed a point-of-care Microfluidic test for Lyme disease, which a doctor could use in their office, and which can provide a Diagnosis within just 15 minutes.

“Ourfindings are the first to demonstrate that Lyme Disease Diagnosis can becarried out in a Microfluidic format that can provide Rapid quantitativeresults,” said Sam Sia, a researcher involved in the study. “This means thatour test could easily be used directly in a doctor’s office, obviating havingto send the samples out to a laboratory that needs at least a couple of hours,if not days, to get test results.”

The newassay detects three biomarkers of Lyme Disease in patient samples, anddemonstrates greater sensitivity than traditional Lyme detection assays. Excitingly,the Device also appears to be better at detecting early stage Lyme Disease andcan detect antibodies that are present in the blood in the first few weeksafter someone contracts Lyme disease.

“While the assay will require more refinement and testingbefore it can be approved for widespread use as a test for Lyme disease, ourresults are very exciting,” said Siddarth Arumugam, another researcher involvedin the study. “It will help so many people if we can develop a single, rapid,multiplexed diagnostic test to identify Lyme Disease stage that can be used indoctors’ offices.”

Study in Journal of Clinical Microbiology: A MultiplexedSerologic Test for Diagnosis of Lyme Disease for Point-of-Care Use

Via: ColumbiaUniversity

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