Tasso Inc., an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has received a $3 million federal grant to continue developing a pingpong ball-sized disposable device, which may allow its users to painlessly administer their own blood tests in not more than two minutes.
The new self-administered Blood Testing Device could be a replacement for needles. Instead of going through a painful procedure of puncturing a vein, all one has to do is to hold this device against the skin, it creates a slight vacuum that immediately starts to pull blood from many microscopic open channels called Capillaries. During the process, capillary action-the same physics that causes water to pick up paper-beckons blood into an attached collection container.
Currently, the device can extract about 0.15 cubic centimeters of blood, which is adequate for most routine lab analyses, including cholesterol, infection, cancer cells and blood sugar tests.
Reportedly, The DARPA grant will fund research aimed at designing preservatives that can stabilize a blood sample for upto one week at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, enabling users to send blood in for analysis without the hassle of rush-delivering it on ice.
"We see our specialty as people who need to test semi-frequently, or infrequently, to monitor cancer or chronic infectious diseases," Ben Casavant, Vice President and Co-Founder, Tasso Inc. said in a press release.
Sounds like a well researched promising idea, the product is expected to hit the market as early as 2016, drawing an end to tedious and uncomfortable lab trips very soon.
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