A testing chip that can rapidly test for infectious diseases has been jointly developed by Professor Daniel Citterio’s laboratory at Keio University’s Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, and Professor Maarten Merkx’s laboratory at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. The testing chip is made of paper and is about 1 cm in size. The test only requires a drop of blood to be applied to the paper chip and a picture to be taken with a digital camera. Results can be confirmed by the blue-green light that is emitted from the chip after about 20 minutes. In addition to reducing the cost and time required to perform tests at hospitals, there are expectations that this paper chip could be used as a quick and easy test to detect tropical diseases in developing nations.
The outcomes of this research have been published in the German scientific journal "Angewandte Chemie International Edition."
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Development of a Glowing Paper Chip That Detects Antibodies― Towards the Early Detection of Infectious Diseases