Brainstorming Ideas:
What disease might you want your device to be able to diagnose?
- The device can detect cancer cells in a patient. It can either detect them or try to shrink them depending on the design.
- The device could also detect Alzheimer’s disease, since the brain is such a hard area to access, the small nanochip could potentially make its way to the brain.
- The chip could also be used to detect the amount of lithium present in the blood which indicates possibility of bipolar disorder.
What type of analyte will your device assess?
- Using certain chemicals with magnetic qualities, an MRI can better detect cancer. MRI’s have low sensitivity, preventing them from detecting cancer early on. However, if a nano particle with magnetic capabilities attaches to the tumor cell, it can be easier to detect the cancer faster.
- A nanoparticle covered with water molecules can make it past the immune system. Many particles that are being used for cancer treatment never make it to the tumor because the body mistakes it for a foreign disease. Coating the particle with water will allow the particle to make its way to the tumor cell.
- Synthetic DNA can be constructed to attract pathogens in a patient’s blood sample in order to detect the amount of glucose in the blood.
How will the patient blood sample and reagents be loaded into the NANOLYSER?
- The blood will come into contact with the NANOLYSER while the ions are electro kinetically driven to the inlet cross section where they are then separated and detected. The lithium value (if looking for the contents of glucose in the blood) can be calculated using an algorithm.
- A gold wire with spiky hills can allow for fluid flow in the chip that has electrical current in order to attract the infectious blood cells.
How will the sample and reagents be moved around in the NANOLYSER?
- In the lithium example, the blood will flow into various channels to be tested for different diseases.
- In the gold chip example, the spikes will allow for a more efficient fluid flow allowing the electrical charge to attract the cells more efficiently.
Will you isolate the target analyte from the other blood components? Or will you analyze directly from the whole blood?
- Depending on the design of the chip this could work either way. With the lithium example, all of the blood can be tested and each sample will be tested for the glucose content.
- In the gold chip example, it will be electrically charged in order to only attract the blood cells that we are trying to observe.
What might be some of the different processing steps your device will need to be able to perform? Will these be performed in the same location on the chip or in different chambers?
- The chip will probably have various channels so that each channel can detect/test for something different. This will allow for one chip to detect multiple diseases instead of having to run more than one test.
- Most of the cancer chips designed are designed to only detect a certain substance in the blood. They specially coated and designed to only be in effect when they are present inside of a tumor cell.
How will the results be read or detected to determine the diagnosis given by your device?
- An algorithm can be used with the lithium example in order to detect the amount of glucose in the sample.
- With the magnetic cancer chip that can make MRI’s more efficient, it will simply attach to the cancer cell in order to allow the tumor to show up in an MRI scan.
Will the NANOLYSER be disposable or reusable? Why?
- The chip will not be reused. If make out of a cheap material (silicon) it can be massed produced and used only once. If chips are used repeatedly, it could cause infection and transferring of diseases and infections from one patient to another.
