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Chipping away at lab costs

OTTAWA — Tricorders. Star Trek buffs will surely recognize the tool medics use to capture instant data about their life form’s health. Though today's researchers are still unable to whip out a handheld model to do a full body scan, the parallel to the technology being developed at the University of Alberta is uncanny.


Lab on chip developed at University of Alberta
Shoeboxed-sized unit for low-cost testing

The goal is to replace conventional lab equipment with an integrated and automated genetic-testing unit that can bring results to the patient quickly, said Christopher Backhouse, a professor at the electrical and computer engineering department.

“It’s our mission to drop the ultimate cost by a factor of a million,” he said.

Backlogged labs and high prices often hinder the tests, which can help spy elusive viruses; diagnose cancer; and pinpoint the correct drug dosages for patients.

Backhouse, with colleague Linda Pilarski, an oncology professor, and their research team have succeeded in building a shoebox sized, portable unit that costs only $1,000.

In January 2008, the Analyst, a journal put out by the U.K. based Royal Society of Chemistry, published an article where journal staff touted the unit as a critical advance for the so-called “lab-on-a-chip” technology.

They wrote, “Canadian scientists have succeeded in building the least expensive portable device for rapid genetic testing ever made.”

The core of the unit is the microchip made of polymer and glass, which is about the size of a standard microscope slide. Etched onto two glass layers are tiny channels – barely a hair’s breadth wide – separated by a thin titanium membrane that traces the route to reaction chambers where the tests are performed.

The chip replaces almost a quarter of the equipment in my research lab,” said University of Alberta’s Pilarski. She said the research team is working to fully automate the unit so the lab technician need only load the sample, push the on button and wait for the read out. But the chips aren’t discovery tools to determine what genes cause what disease – they can only be programmed to test for known patterns, she said.

Backhouse said he hopes doctors will eventually use the unit to help reduce the number of people who die each year of adverse drug reactions. “When we’re diagnosed, physicians tend to assume we’re all the same,” he said. “But treatment that might help one person could be toxic to another.”

Taking the stress out of the test

The chips could also screen for diseases and cancers that are either too complex or too expensive to do at a regular walk-in-clinic. And having genetic testing readily available could help detect what conventional tests might miss.

Barrie, Ont, resident Roger Madill, 65, knows how important this can be.

At his annual checkup in 2000, his doctor recommended the prostate specific antigen (PSA) exam, which is regarded as one of the best early-detection tests.

Though the results indicated his PSA levels were low – and consequently fit the norm for his age group – Madill opted to get “the rubber glove” anyways. A week later he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and three months later he was laying in a hospital bed prepping for surgery.

'You can brainwash yourself into thinking what will be will be. But it doesn’t do anything until you hear the word negative.’

His journey didn’t stop there though, the cancer came back and Madill had to undergo radiation therapy.

Now, every six months, he goes to the hospital to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned.

“You can brainwash yourself into thinking ‘what will be will be,’” he said. “But it doesn’t do anything until you hear the word ‘negative.’”

He said he doesn’t let the fear of a relapse rule his day-to-day life, but usually in the two weeks leading up to the test unease settles in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m starting to get used to it,” he said. “But it’s hard not to think about it coming back, especially since I’ve already had a reoccurrence.”

The stress of waiting for results is one factor the lab-on-a-chip technology could help reduce, said Pilarski.

The Future

Backhouse said that the team is continuing to adapt and reconfigure the existing technology to simplify its use. He compares it to the evolution of computers.

Inside scheme of the portable testing unit being developped at the university of Alberta
Inside scheme of the portable testing unit.

“You used to need a PhD to operate one, now they’re in kindergarten classes,” he said. The research team has spent 10 years developing the technology that led to the shoebox sized unit. In five years, Backhouse said he hopes to reduce its size to that of a USB key, with the cost hovering somewhere around $10.

But the technology will have to undergo rigorous testing and review before it can be applied in doctors offices or be sold over the counter.

Pilarski said there are concerns with providing tests to people without medical consultation. She said though a test might give a percentage giving the likelyhood of contracting a disease, people might panic because they don't understand the statistic.

"It could make people think they're sicker than they really are," she said.

Backhouse adds society should start considering how to regulate genetic testing in the field before it becomes too mainstream.

“We need to start setting the precedent,” he said of the emerging technology. “It won’t be long before these chips and other like them will be sold over the counter at the corner store.”

Related Links

UK Non-profit public interest group: Genewatch.org

Ethics of Genetic Testing from New Jersey's adult onset genetic disease program

Health Canada - Medical test kits for home use

What it does

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a key technique in molecular genetics that permits the analysis of any short sequence of DNA (or RNA) without having to clone it. PCR is used to reproduce (amplify) selected sections of DNA. PCR uses the same molecules that nature uses for copying DNA:

• Two "primers" that flag the beginning and end of the DNA stretch to be copied;
• An enzyme called polymerase that walks along the segment of DNA, reading its code and assembling a copy; and
• A pile of DNA building blocks that the polymerase needs to make that copy.

Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) is a process by which molecules (such as proteins, DNA, or RNA fragments) can be separated according to size and electrical charge by applying an electric current to them. Each kind of molecule travels through the medium at a different rate, depending on its electrical charge and molecular size.

Source: MedicineNet.com

 

Tricky Testing

Roger Bull is the DNA lab coordinator at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, where researchers are using CE and PCR to study DNA sequencing.

He said the process from start to finish, takes about eight hours on regular machines – and that’s assuming the tests are done correctly.

The PCR step in particular is fickle because technicians need to be very exact and compares targeting a gene to making a recipe.

“If you change the ingredients or alter their amounts in any way, you’ll throw the taste right off,” Bull said. “So if you aren’t accurate with your target, you could waste hours copying the wrong one.”

Bull described the CE machine in his lab as about the size of a mini refrigerator and its value about $400, 000.

“Not everyone has these in their living room though,” he said. “They cost about as much as a small house.”

 



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