Diagnostics

Detecting bacteria and viruses inexpensively

The Center for Microfluidics and Medical Diagnostics brings together interdisciplinary teams of professionals with expertise in microfluidics, nanofabrication, and microbiology. Researchers in the center are developing new techniques for the preparation and delivery of therapeutic treatments of the future:

• Portable medical diagnostic kits for point-of-care (at home or in the field) use: Developing microfluidic technologies for kits that can be used by untrained personnel. We would like these kits to detect bacteria, virus and molecules in a shorter time.
• Tuberculosis: We are also working on a kit that can determine the antibiotic susceptibility of TB bacteria very rapidly--in a few hours. TB bacteria are especially slow to grow--taking sometimes days. As such, it requires days before a physician knows which antibiotic to prescribe to a TB patient. Such kits should reduce the spread of the TB bacteria as the proper antibiotic can render the patients non-contagious a few days earlier.
• SARS and Avian Flu: The current method for identifying flu viruses or cold bacteria by a century-old technique requires a painfully slow process that would severely hamper our ability to fight future epidemics like SARS and Avian Flu.
• Cancer: One exciting drug-delivery project being conducted in the center, in collaboration with the Walther Cancer Research Center, is to encapsulate an anti-cancer drug for efficient deliver to an afflicted region.
• Improving on current techniques that require weeks to do blood work
• Improving the prevention, detection, and treatment of clinical conditions and environmental hazards
• Medical diagnostics

> Center Director Hsueh-Chia Chang's research