10-minute Ebola Test Developed

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-30 04:59

10-minute Ebola test developed

American researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed the fastest Ebola test: it takes only 10 minutes. Test strips with antibodies attached to silver nanoparticles also allow you to simultaneously test a patient's blood for yellow fever and dengue. The cost of one test kit is only $ 2.

Test strips of a new technique, photo from the site https://www.rsc.org/ /

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School have developed a paper test with silver nanoparticles that can detect three diseases simultaneously. The test is suitable for detecting Ebola, yellow fever and dengue. Development reduces the cost of diagnostics to $ 2 and its time - to 10 minutes.

The principle of the technique is similar to pregnancy tests. The development is a 8 × 3 cm strip of paper with antibodies attached to silver nanoparticles of various sizes. The patient's blood serum is used for analysis. The result appears on the paper in stripes of different colors.

A team of scientists is developing an application for a mobile phone so that the diagnosis can not be made by eye. “This would enable real-time tracking of the spread of the disease,” comments Lee Gehrke, project manager.

The immediate task is to clinically test the technology. In the future, the researchers plan to adapt the test to diagnose a wide range of viruses.