Portable blood analyser detects Ebola virus in 75 minutes

12 December 2014

 STMicroelectronics and Clonit, in collaboration with Italy’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani, have developed in a few weeks a prototype portable analyzer able to identify the presence of the Ebola virus in less than 75 minutes.

The portable analyzer is based on the Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) technique that is used to multiply and identify tiny samples of DNA. The next step is to optimize the system for large-scale deployment, including minimizing the threat of infection during the handling of the biological sample and lowering costs.

The prototype analyzer kit has been successfully tested for compliance with applicable international standards by the National Institute for Infectious Diseases Spallanzani, one of the two Italian institutions designated by the Italian Ministry of Health as a reference center for care and treatment of Ebola.

The kit detects the presence of the Ebola virus with extreme accuracy in just a few microliters of human-blood samples and the accuracy of the result has been confirmed with a blood sample diluted up to a million times. The high sensitivity of the test allows the detection of the virus at a very early stage, which can significantly help limit the spread of the deadly disease.

The kit consists of four main components:

  • An extractor, on which the blood sample is loaded to extract the virus RNA;
  • A stamp-sized silicon microchip, developed by STMicroelectronics’ labs in Agrate Brianza and Catania, which acts as a miniaturized reactor and reproduces, in a micrometer scale, the entire process of amplification and screening of the extracted genetic material on which the extracted RNA is loaded, to be then reverse-transcribed into DNA and amplified according to the RT-PCR methodology;
  • Specific reagents, developed by Clonit, that are pre-loaded on the microchip to perform a Quantitative Real-Time PCR (viral load) in compliance with all standards and controls required by the international quality-control regulations;
  • A portable optical reader, also developed by STMicroelectronics, which detects the presence of viral DNA in the sample and sends the data to a PC that processes and presents them in graphical form. In addition to accuracy, the speed and small size of the solution makes it very useful in urgent situations and for “field” diagnostics.

“This test will have important consequences for both medicine and public health,” underlined Giuseppe Ippolito, Scientific Director at the Spallanzani Institute. “In fact, a quick diagnosis leading to the identification of patients with Ebola would result in the immediate implementation of isolation measures, thus reducing the risk of spread of infection in the community and enabling the immediate start of an appropriate treatment for the patient.”

“With the development of this technique, the Institute once again meets the need of the scientific community and of the country to develop key technologies to cope with infectious diseases," added Valerio Fabio Alberti, Special Commissioner, at the Spallanzani Institute.

"We are proud to put our innovative capabilities and deep technology portfolio at the service of humanity and to bring our contribution to the fight against a serious epidemic that could threaten the entire world population,” said Andrea Cuomo, Corporate Vice President, Advanced Projects, STMicroelectronics.

"I consider this achievement of the Italian biomedical research an excellent example of collaboration between public and private organizations," noted Carlo Roccio, Clonit Chief Executive Officer.

Now the partners, in collaboration with other industry leaders in this field, are evaluating an integrated, completely self-contained, and fully automated disease-detection system capable of performing multiple analyses in parallel on a large number of samples. Time optimization, along with portability, automation, and integration will allow further cost reductions and produce a more efficient process with human intervention limited to sample taking, paving the way to affordable screening of Ebola and other viruses.

“The brilliant results of this cooperation stimulate our Institute to more vigorously pursue its mission to promote the development and validation of new technologies, in addition to testing the transfer of these new technologies into the national health system," concluded Valerio Fabio Alberti of the Spallanzani Institute.

Source: Clonit

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