Ever had an urgent medical test done at a clinic or doctor’s office, only to wait days or weeks for the results to come back from the lab? Imagine instead if there was a handheld device that could test you for a host of viruses and diseases and provide a diagnosis in under 20 minutes. Such a technology would revolutionize the speed, cost-effectiveness, and clinical delivery of providing medical care.

For roughly six months beginning in September 2012, I was part of a research team that was turning this concept into a reality. Working with the group of Professor Shana Kelley at the University of Toronto, our focus was on a powerful “lab-on-a-chip” diagnostic system that used nanostructured micro-electrodes to search fluid samples for tiny chemical fingerprints of viruses, bacteria, antibodies, or proteins.

Tiny micro-electrodes change their electrochemical properties after bonding with biomarkers such as viral RNA.

My contributions to the project included:

• carrying out cleanroom microfabrication of prototype chips (at TNFC, Toronto)
• improving the chip fabrication recipes for better device yield
• the design of a new chip layout (including fabrication micro-lithography masks) to improve fluid handling
• building the first electrical interface to connect our chips to a DMF voltage controller
• experimentally testing the prototype chips (including pathogen and solution preparation)