The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series features a small, paper-based device that can monitor or detect disease with no electricity or expensive lab analyses required.
Based on a report by Scott T. Phillips, Ph.D., in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from http://www.acs.org/globalchallenges.
Phillips explains that people living in places with limited resources often don't have the means to purchase and operate conventional medical tests. Such tests, conducted at a doctor's office or clinical laboratory, detect or monitor disease with a hand-held or desktop electronic device. Many of them work by measuring the levels of specific proteins in a patient's blood that can indicate a wide range of serious medical conditions, including heart attacks and certain cancers. Phillips' team wanted to develop a similar and sensitive tool to measure small amounts of disease markers that would be much less expensive, easier to operate and work without a power source.
They developed a new paper-based device that is about the size of a stick of gum. In initial experiments, they used it to detect a liver enzyme that in high amounts can suggest liver or bone problems, and another enzyme that is a marker for fecal contamination in water. After applying a sample to the device, a small white dot turns green if the enzyme is present. After a few seconds or minutes, another small white dot turns green. The longer it takes for the second dot to change color after the first, the higher the concentration of the enzyme. The device uses just a few inexpensive materials and can be altered to measure a wide range of enzymes to monitor many different conditions.
Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions is a series of podcasts describing some of the 21st century's most daunting problems, and how cutting-edge research in chemistry matters in the quest for solutions. Global Challenges is the centerpiece in an alliance on sustainability between ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Global Challenges is a sweeping panorama of global challenges that includes dilemmas such as providing a hungry and thirsty world with ample supplies of safe food and clean water, developing alternatives to petroleum to fuel society, preserving the environment and ensuring a sustainable future for our children and improving human health.
For more entertaining, informative science videos and podcasts from the ACS Office of Public Affairs, view Prized Science, Spellbound, Science Elements and Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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