A smart phone-operated, portable device for in vitro vaso-occlusion tests.
About
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a life-threatening hematological disorder that causes crescent-shaped erythrocytes to disrupt blood flow. While traditional SCD diagnostic techniques are highly accurate and valid, these techniques require expensive equipment and have long processing times, which has limited their ability to be used in the field. Researchers at FAU developed a smart phone-operated, portable device for in vitro vaso-occlusion tests. This device can assess the risk of SCD disease by measuring occlusion in capillaries and microvasculature-like channels and structures. The device consists of a disposable microfluidic chip to induce capillary and microvascular occlusion by blood cells, an electrical impedance reader module, and a customized cell phone application.
Key Benefits
Only needs a small amount of blood to test Simple lab-on-a-chip design Ability to quickly quantify vascular occlusion Integrated into a smartphone for easy reading of results
Applications
Medical devices