Detecting Protein Markers of Disease

Certain diseases are characterized as having specific abnormal proteins circulating in their blood. These proteins could serve as markers of the presence of the disease. However, the current clinical laboratory tests for these proteins are expensive, making screening millions of people for these diseases impractical. Generally, the only people who are tested are those who are at risk or who are already suspected of having the disease.

A technique just now being developed would make testing for the presence of abnormal plasma proteins easy, quick and cheap. The technique is based on glass and plastic microfluidic chips that can test for dozens of proteins in a single drop of blood, in just minutes, for pennies per test. The new technique is described in the Dec. 19 issue of Science.