Engineers at University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Okanagan campus have developed a lab powerful enough to look at microscopic drops of fluid and identify harmful pathogens, like those responsible for HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis, but also small enough to fit in your hand.

The system uses mainly off-the-shelf electronics, like smartphones, and also technologies developed by the Advanced Control and Intelligent Systems (ASC) Lab at UBC.

The ability comes from a “lab on a chip” technology, which is a digital microfluidic processor that controls electrical fields to move the sample droplets in and around a chip.

(Read “Your Smart Phone as Medical Lab Instrument” at Engineering360.)

What results is a handheld, inexpensive testing laboratory that can be used in a setting where operation of traditional lab equipment isn’t possible. Hundreds of these chips can be made for around $5, according to Associate Professor Homayoun Najjaran, founder and principal investigator of the ACIS Lab.

“It’s of great interest for use in places that do not have infrastructure for accurate testing in a timely fashion,” Najjaran says. “To make it really valuable, you want to be able to put the laboratory at the point of care, and this system will do just that.”

The electronic systems of the lab only need a small rechargeable 3.7-volt battery to entirely power it with several hundred volts and manipulate the droplets of sample fluid.

The team is currently on a working prototype, and researchers are looking for an industry partner to refine it for commercialization.

Question or comment on this article? Contact an editor: engineering360editors@ihs.com