New tech could yield faster, cheaper way to detect Zika
WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana: Purdue researchers are developing an integrated biosensing platform aimed at detecting and monitoring mosquito-borne diseases faster and cheaper than current methods, to aid in preventing virus outbreaks and their devastating effects.
Lia A Stanciu, a Purdue professor of materials engineering, is leading the research and development of the technology.
Additional researchers are Ernesto Marinero, professor of materials engineering and electrical and computing engineering; and Richard Kuhn, professor and department head of biological sciences and director of the Purdue Institute for Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Diseases. Kuhn also led the research team that were the first to determine the structure of the Zika virus.
Stanciu said that current detection methods for neglected tropical diseases are often time-consuming, expensive and complicated.
“Laboratory techniques that detect viruses aren’t very efficient and require patients to go to a hospital and wait some time for their results, which isn’t always possible in developing countries,” she said.
“By the time people realise they need to start monitoring a disease it’s often too late and an outbreak has emerged. We want our technology to be able to be the first to detect and monitor a disease so that preventive measures can be taken to avoid or lessen the effects of devastating outbreaks.”
Stanciu, Marinero and Kuhn have developed an amperometric biosensor that uses functionalised nanoparticles that specifically bind to the target viruses’ DNA or RNA. When the binding occurs there is a change in the device resistance, which the sensor employs to unambiguously detect the presence of the virus. The sensor can then determine whether or not a blood or mosquito sample has the virus and how much of the virus is present. The sensor relies on an agent that will only respond to the intended virus to be detected.
“We’ve used mosquito samples on our laboratory scale sensor and we’ve been able to detect the virus showing a high sensitivity rate to low concentrations of the virus,” Stanciu said. “We’ve been especially interested in the dengue and Zika virus because it’s the same mosquito that transmits both diseases, so our technology would be able to quickly detect one of those diseases using the same platform.”— Newswise
By the time people realise they need to start monitoring a disease it’s often too late and an outbreak has emerged. We want our technology to be able to be the first to detect and monitor a disease so that preventive measures can be taken to avoid or lessen the effects of devastating outbreaks. – Lia A Stanciu, professor of materials engineering