Super-cheap blood tests being developed.

[mattbell]

I stumbled upon a totally appropriate follow up to my post from earlier today... A company is developing a blood test chip that will screen for the presence of various proteins that indicate cancer infections.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21676/

It only needs one drop of blood, and could cost just a few dollars.

Comments

[flamingnerd.livejournal.com]

"Serum proteins provide an incredible window into the biology of disease,"

actually, not really. Dude is so bullshitting. Ah well, that's the way of research; gotta convince people you're stuff is a miracle so they'll keep giving you money. It is good research being done.

They will be useful for a lot of substrates, but the only reliable protein (for cancer detection) found in the serum is PSA (prostate specific antigen) and even its specificity is just not that great for a diagnostic test. Scientists have looked hard for serum protein indicators of other cancers, but they don't find much that shows nearly enough sensitivity or specificity to justify their use for screening. Even if some of them might be used in rare, but indicated cases, there is little to be gained by economies of scale.

So yeah, awesome system, but I'll be surprised if they contribute significantly to serum cancer protein detection. Cancers just don't shed that much of their protein into the blood.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Good to know. Thanks for applying your knowledge to this!