Description
Rapid Disease Testing has become extremely important in a globalised world. Every second counts when helping to halt the spread of deadly diseases.
But current effort to contain the spread of diseases are often hampered by the time it takes to diagnose and isolate those carrying the virus. A new machine has been developed in Singapore, which can diagnose infectious diseases, such as bird flu, within two hours.
KEY WEAPON:
The MicroKit – designed for use at borders, check-points, clinics and airports – could be a key weapon in the fight against the global spread of diseases such as bird flu. It was developed at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore by Professor Jackie Ying and her team, with the aim being to diagnose potentially dangerous diseases safely and quickly.
Current screening methods can take hours, even days. Samples have to be taken from the virus carrier to the lab, where they undergo lengthy analysis. MicroKit is designed to avoid these problems.
PORTABLE & EASY TO USE:
The whole process is safely contained in one small box. A syringe inside the machine pumps the fluid from one chamber to another – extracting and purifying the DNA. Designed to enable diagnosis outside the lab, the MicroKit is portable and easy to use by unskilled operators.
Professor Ying hopes that the MicroKit will one day be able to process 20 samples for 25 different diseases simultaneously.
In this film we speak with Professor Ying about the machine and how it works and see the machine operating and testing for diseases.