Blood Test Made Easy! Robotic Device Developed by Rutgers Will Now Be Used to Draw Blood
Diagnostic blood testing is the most commonly performed clinical procedure in the world and it influences most of the medical decisions made in hospitals and laboratories.
Researchers from New Jersey’s Rutgers University have designed an automated system for drawing and analysing blood samples which could potentially increase efficiency and reduce the human error factor in medical settings. The device will provide rapid results and allow health care practitioners to spend more time treating patients. A study describing the fully automated device is published online in the journal Technology.
“The device represents the holy grail in blood testing technology,” said Martin L Yarmush, senior author of the study at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Integrating miniaturised robotic and microfluidic (lab-on-a-chip) systems, this technology combines the breadth and accuracy of traditional blood drawing and laboratory testing with the speed and convenience of point-of-care testing.” Diagnostic blood testing is the most commonly performed clinical procedure in the world and it influences most of the medical decisions made in hospitals and laboratories.
Patients would start by placing their arm underneath the system’s ‘venipuncture robot’ which would use its image-guidance system to locate a vein. It would then proceed to draw blood from that vein, transferring the sample into a centrifuge. From there, the separated blood would be computer-analysed via a microfluidic platform. The testing used artificial arms with plastic tubes that served as blood vessels, filled with a blood-like fluid containing fluorescent microbeads. Using that fluid, the device has performed highly accurate simulated white blood cell tests.
“When designing the system, our focus was on creating a modular and expandable device,” said Max Balter who led the study and holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Rutgers. “With our relatively simple chip design and analysis techniques, the device can be extended to incorporate a broader panel of tests in the future.” The device could provide rapid test results at bedsides or in ambulances, emergency rooms, clinics and doctors’ offices.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 14, 2018 03:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).