Lab-in-a-box developed for cheap, portable genetic testing

February 11, 2008

Genetic testing “on the go” looks to cure headaches at the doctor office, eliminating guesswork when diagnosing and treating patients on the spot—such as separating a hypochondriac from a SARS patient.

A wide variety of genetic tests are available—but they are not often used because their cost is prohibitive. University of Alberta researchers want to change all that, having developed a $1,000 portable unit about the size of a shoebox, which has the same capability as a lab full of expensive genetic testing equipment. The device—along with other, even smaller units the team is now in the process of developing—paves the way for enormous savings to the health-care system.

Christopher Backhouse, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, says a genetic test costs too much but that miniaturization has made his team’s advancements possible.

“We’ve applied the same miniaturization technologies to health care that were applied to computers by coming up with portable, lab-on-a-chip technologies that are easy to use.”

The engineering team has been building and testing the units in the University of Alberta’s Micro and Nano Fabrication Facility. The heart of the unit, the “chip,” looks like a standard microscope slide etched with fine silver and gold lines. That microfabricated chip applies nano-biotechnologies within tiny volumes, sometimes working with only a few molecules of sample. Because of this highly integrated chip (containing microfluidics and microscale devices), the remainder of the system is inexpensive and fast.

There are many possible uses for such a portable genetic testing unit: pinpointing types of cancer, testing water quality (such as for E. coli), testing multiple patients during an epidemic, determining a person’s genetic predisposition to an illness.

The work that led this system is part of a larger engineering collaboration in which electrical engineers Backhouse, Duncan Elliot and Jim McMullin from the U of A, along with Paul Charette at the Université de Sherbrooke (Quebec), are combining skills to put much of the functionality of a medical diagnostic lab on a far smaller instrument. This requires a combination of photonics, nano-biotechnology, electronics, microfabrication and programming.
www.ece.ualberta.ca