We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress hp
Sign In
Advertise with Us
LGC Clinical Diagnostics

Download Mobile App




New Sensor Chip Shows Promise for Rapid, Low-Cost POC Disease Diagnostics

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 27 Jun 2023
Print article
Image: LAMP reaction chamber and nanopore film sensor containing immobilized LAMP products (Photo courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife)
Image: LAMP reaction chamber and nanopore film sensor containing immobilized LAMP products (Photo courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife)

The Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) technique is a popular method for identifying pathogens by amplifying their DNA. The detection of LAMP-amplified products, such as the DNA of pathogens, typically requires the use of fluorescent dyes to "label" these products, which can be expensive and have low sensitivity. Now, researchers have designed a new sensor capable of diagnosing pathogens without the need for these reagents and with a high degree of sensitivity. This new development also eliminates the time-consuming process of DNA purification, which often poses challenges for point-of-care applications.

Scientists at Texas A&M AgriLife Research (College Station, TX, USA) in collaboration with Iowa State University (Ames, IA, USA) have developed a sensor chip capable of identifying numerous disease-causing pathogens with ten times the sensitivity of existing techniques. The sensor chip eliminates the need for chemical dye reagents typically employed in diagnostics. The innovative chip consists of a nanopore thin-film sensor housed within a unique reaction chamber. Uniquely designed primers are immobilized on the nanofilm, causing the amplified LAMP products to bind to the sensor. The resulting signals can then be directly and easily measured using a portable spectrometer. The sensor delivers results within approximately 30 minutes. This new technology holds the promise of rapid, inexpensive point-of-care diagnostics in various sectors, including plants, food, animals, and human health, including the detection of foodborne pathogens, bird flu, and COVID-19.

In their study, the researchers used the innovative sensor to identify Phytophthora infestans, a pathogen that causes the highly destructive late blight disease, posing a significant threat to potato and tomato crops worldwide. The LAMP chip offers a new portable platform for pathogen detection, employing label-free sensors with exceptional sensitivity. The research team will now focus on increasing its sensitivity to the subattomolar levels or even lower. They aim to overcome the existing challenges in identifying and differentiating pathogen species and strains that share high sequence similarities. The team also plans to improve detection specificity and implement quantitative detection by integrating artificial intelligence and CRISPR gene-editing technologies. Their goal is to develop a feasible product for wide-ranging use in plant, animal, and human health point-of-care applications.

“This research advances technologies that have emerged as some of our greatest opportunities for improving agriculture, food safety and human health,” said Junqi Song, Ph.D., associate professor and plant immunity research lead with AgriLife Research. “Our publication represents a step toward realizing these powerful tools against diseases.”

Related Links:
Texas A&M AgriLife Research
Iowa State University

Gold Member
Pharmacogenetics Panel
VeriDose Core Panel v2.0
Verification Panels for Assay Development & QC
Seroconversion Panels
New
Malondialdehyde HPLC Test
Malondialdehyde in Serum/Plasma – HPLC
New
TRAb Immunoassay
Chorus TRAb

Print article

Channels

Clinical Chemistry

view channel
Image: The tiny clay-based materials can be customized for a range of medical applications (Photo courtesy of Angira Roy and Sam O’Keefe)

‘Brilliantly Luminous’ Nanoscale Chemical Tool to Improve Disease Detection

Thousands of commercially available glowing molecules known as fluorophores are commonly used in medical imaging, disease detection, biomarker tagging, and chemical analysis. They are also integral in... Read more

Immunology

view channel
Image: The cancer stem cell test can accurately choose more effective treatments (Photo courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

Stem Cell Test Predicts Treatment Outcome for Patients with Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer frequently responds to chemotherapy initially, but eventually, the tumor develops resistance to the therapy, leading to regrowth. This resistance is partially due to the activation... Read more

Microbiology

view channel
Image: The lab-in-tube assay could improve TB diagnoses in rural or resource-limited areas (Photo courtesy of Kenny Lass/Tulane University)

Handheld Device Delivers Low-Cost TB Results in Less Than One Hour

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the deadliest infectious disease globally, affecting an estimated 10 million people annually. In 2021, about 4.2 million TB cases went undiagnosed or unreported, mainly due to... Read more

Pathology

view channel
Image: The ready-to-use DUB enzyme assay kits accelerate routine DUB activity assays without compromising data quality (Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock)

Sensitive and Specific DUB Enzyme Assay Kits Require Minimal Setup Without Substrate Preparation

Ubiquitination and deubiquitination are two important physiological processes in the ubiquitin-proteasome system, responsible for protein degradation in cells. Deubiquitinating (DUB) enzymes contain around... Read more

Technology

view channel
Image: The HIV-1 self-testing chip will be capable of selectively detecting HIV in whole blood samples (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock)

Disposable Microchip Technology Could Selectively Detect HIV in Whole Blood Samples

As of the end of 2023, approximately 40 million people globally were living with HIV, and around 630,000 individuals died from AIDS-related illnesses that same year. Despite a substantial decline in deaths... Read more

Industry

view channel
Image: The collaboration aims to leverage Oxford Nanopore\'s sequencing platform and Cepheid\'s GeneXpert system to advance the field of sequencing for infectious diseases (Photo courtesy of Cepheid)

Cepheid and Oxford Nanopore Technologies Partner on Advancing Automated Sequencing-Based Solutions

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA), a leading molecular diagnostics company, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (Oxford, UK), the company behind a new generation of sequencing-based molecular analysis technologies,... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2025 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.