Scientists from the University of Utah have created a sensitive prototype card-swipe device that could be used to test microscopic blood, saliva or urine samples loaded in a card, for dozens or even hundreds of diseases simultaneously, using giant magnetoresistance, or GMR technology.
Magnetoresistance is the change in a material’s resistance to electrical current where an external magnetic field is applied to the material. That change is not usually more than one per cent. But some multilayer materials display a change in resistance of as much as 80 per cent. This is giant magnetoresistance.
The prototype reader has four GMR devices: two sensors to detect changes to the magnetic fields of the sample spots, and two ‘reference elements’ to distinguish how magnetic measurements were affected by temperature changes as opposed to the presence of disease indicators in medical samples.
The prototype does not yet resemble a credit card reader device, instead it is currently around the size of a PC, and is being used to ‘read’ samples placed on pyrex glass sample sticks about three-quarters of an inch long, and one-eigth of an inch wide. However, once developed commercially, the creators are hopeful the design will be refined to look like a credit card reader.
Research co-author Michael Granger, explained: “You can envision this as a wellness check in which a patient sample – blood, urine, saliva – is spotted on a sample stick or card, scanned, and then the readout indicates your state of well-being.”
Unlike lab tests today, results could be available in minutes not hours to weeks.
Read more at the University of Utah
Read more on: Bio Tech, Design, GMR, prototype, reader, University of Utah
