One Step Down

IBM has developed lab-on-a-chip diagnostic tool, reports Technology Review. In the prototype, a small amount of blood flows through the chips' capillaries — as small as 30 micrometers. There, antibodies bind to disease markers in the blood, to diagnose a disease in 15 minutes, according to Emmanuel Delamarche who worked on the device at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. Those compounds are then detected by another set of antibodies and measured with a fluoresce reader. "The next step is to develop a pilot series of maybe a thousand devices and test them on samples from hospitals," Delamarche says.