Antiretroviral therapy (ART) increases the longevity and quality of life for HIV patients. The lack of objective diagnostic tests to determine when to start ART and to monitor its successes hinders the effective use of treatment. An important diagnostic procedure is to obtain a patient’s CD4+ lymphocyte count, which is traditionally carried out using optical instrumentation. However, the cost and technical requirements of such equipment make them infeasible as analytical methods in poorer countries.
William Rodriguez (Daktari Diagnostics) and Rashid Bashir (University of Illinois) present a solution to this problem with their novel microfabricated biochip to enumerate CD4+ T lymphocytes from healthy human subject blood samples.
Their biochip incorporates electrical impedance sensing coupled with immunoaffinity chromatography to electrically differentiate CD4+ cells from other leukocytes with accuracy comparable to current optical diagnostic methods. This negates any requirement for labelling or optical detection, while its microfabricated nature suggests it may be an inexpensive, simple and portable alternative to current flow cytometric practises.
Learn more about this device by reading this HOT article, which is free to access for the next 4 weeks!
A microfabricated electrical differential counter for the selective enumeration of CD4+ T lymphocytes
Nicholas N. Watkins, Supriya Sridhar, Xuanhong Cheng, Grace D. Chen, Mehmet Toner, William Rodriguez and Rashid Bashir
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1437-1447
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00556H
