Picosecond-laser-created vapor nanobubbles rapidly reveal malaria through the skin
Houston, TX--Researchers at Rice University are using a near-infrared picosecond laser to create and detect vapor nanobubbles in malaria parasites nesting in the human skin.1 If clinically developed, this approach, which is harmless to humans, will allow detection of these malaria parasites rapidly and without drawing blood.
The bursting vapor nanobubbles have a unique acoustic signature that allows for an extremely sensitive diagnosis; Rice’s technology is so sensitive it can detect a single malaria-infected cell among a million normal cells with zero false-positive readings.
Quick and simple test
“Ours is the first through-the-skin method that’s been shown to rapidly and accurately detect malaria in seconds without the use of blood sampling or reagents,” says lead investigator Dmitri Lapotko, a Rice scientist who invented the vapor nanobubble technology. The diagnosis and screening will be done using a low-cost, battery-powered portable device that can be operated by nonmedical personnel. One device should be able to screen up to 200,000 people per year, with the cost of diagnosis estimated to be below 50 cents, he notes.
The existing gold standard for diagnosing malaria is a “blood smear” test, which requires a sample of the patient’s blood, a trained laboratory technician, chemical reagents, and high-quality microscope. These are often unavailable in low-resource hospitals and clinics in the developing world.
The new transdermal diagnostic method takes advantage of the optical properties and small size of hemozoin, a nanoparticle produced by a malaria parasite inside red blood cells. Hemozoin crystals are not found in normal red blood cells. The hemozoin absorbs the energy from a short laser pulse to create the transient vapor nanobubbles. The nanobubbles that emerge around the hemozoin nanoparticles are detected both acoustically and optically.
Lapotko says the first trials of the technology in humans are expected to begin in Houston in early 2014.
Source: http://news.rice.edu/2013/12/30/vapor-nanobubbles-rapidly-detect-malaria-through-the-skin/
REFERENCE:
1. Ekaterina Y. Lukianova-Hleb et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2013); doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316253111
John Wallace | Senior Technical Editor (1998-2022)
John Wallace was with Laser Focus World for nearly 25 years, retiring in late June 2022. He obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Rutgers University and a master's in optical engineering at the University of Rochester. Before becoming an editor, John worked as an engineer at RCA, Exxon, Eastman Kodak, and GCA Corporation.